The Silent Order

by Melanie Dobson

  She took off her nightgown and began to dress in the skirt and blouse. She tossed the envelope with her mother’s money into the satchel, and then her fingers fumbled with the buttons on the back of her satin blouse and blue skirt. She felt naked without her long skirt and her toes ached in her pointed shoes, but she couldn’t go barefoot in an English outfit.

  I don’t want to be with Liz, I want to be with you.

  She’d longed for those words most of her life, but she and Rollin could never be together. She couldn’t return to Cleveland, and it wasn’t fair to ask him to leave.

  Her fingers shook as she brushed her hair over her shoulders. If only Rollin would steal her and Henry away from here, to a safe place where she could introduce her son to the good in the world instead of the bad.

  She could never ask Rollin to run away with them. He’d spent his life trying to fight for justice, and he had to finish the job, but she’d be ready when he returned tonight. Ready to take Henry out into the world on her own.

  She placed her brush in her satchel.

  She’d promised to tell Rollin about Henry’s father when he returned. Part of her prayed he would ask her again, but part of her was terrified for him to ask.

  It would change everything between them.

  She closed the lid of the trunk. Maybe she should wake Henry and leave now, before Rollin returned. It would save them both the agony of the truth, and the pain of having to say good-bye. She could wake Isaac and ask him to take her and Henry to Sugarcreek before daylight. She’d hire someone to take her to the train station in Dover for a ticket to the East Coast.

  Or maybe they could go west.

  One of the dogs barked below, and then she heard footsteps. The lantern in her hand, she slid out into the hallway. She hadn’t expected Rollin to return until morning.

  She walked across the hallway, and at the top of the staircase, she stopped. She expected to see Rollin, but there were two shadows below.

  Her mind flashed back to the last time she’d been confronted by the shadows at Mangiamo’s. The time she ran away.

  But her son was upstairs now. And her aunt and uncle.

  She took a deep breath and took another step forward.

  These men hadn’t come for Henry or the others. They’d come for her, and this time she wasn’t running.

  *

  A woman walked down the steps toward them, holding a lantern in her hands. Her long hair was brushed straight over her shoulders, and she wore an outdated outfit, but it fit her so well that no man in his right mind would care about the style.

  Recognition came slowly to him. He could hardly believe it was Katie.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” he asked, his voice husky.

  “Rollin?”

  She hung the lantern at the foot of the steps and walked toward him. Wrapping her in his arms, he didn’t want to let go.

  “You’re all right?” she asked.

  He held her out, staring at her again in the dim light. As he and Gil drove back from the Bowmans’, he’d prepared himself to convince Katie that she and Henry needed to leave Sugarcreek until they found Malloy, but it didn’t seem like she needed convincing after all.

  Was she planning to leave without saying good-bye? Or maybe she figured he wouldn’t come back alive.

  “Were you leaving?” he asked.

  Her voice shook. “I—”

  Gilbert cleared his throat beside him, and he let her go.

  “Katie, this is my former partner, Gilbert Simmons, and Gilbert, this is the old friend I told you about.” Neither Gilbert nor anyone else needed to know Katie’s relationship to the frayed family they’d left behind minutes ago.

  “I don’t recall you using the word ‘friend,’ ” Gilbert said.

  “Did you—” she started again, flustered. “How did it go?”

  “Let’s talk in the morning.” He took her hand, gently squeezing it. “You will be here in the morning?”

  She nodded.

  “I hope you don’t mind.” He let go of her hand. “But I offered Gilbert a place to stay for the night as well.”

  “I’ll move Henry,” she said. “One of you can sleep on the floor.”

  “Actually, we’d prefer to sleep by the doors down here.”

  She didn’t ask questions, but she insisted on feeding them sliced ham and bread before she brought enough pillows and quilts to pad the wood floor. Gilbert went through the sitting room to guard the back entrance. Rollin spread a quilt beside the front door.

  Bennett lay down beside him, and when Rollin closed his eyes, all he could see was the ball of flames on the field. Gilbert said he hadn’t touched Salvatore’s airplane, so Raymond or one of the other men must have fixed it so there was no way that Salvatore could escape if he ran.

  Salvatore was gone, and the Sugarcreek police took Raymond to the local jail along with dozens of others they arrested trying to run away. Antonio was barely alive when they lifted him up on a cot to take him to the town doctor. The bodies of Celeste and several others they would leave until morning, and hopefully they would find Malloy in the morning as well.

  Orange and red flames blazed through Rollin’s mind as he fell asleep on the floor, and then he was awake again, the morning rays heating the front door. The dog was gone, and Rollin’s entire body ached.

  If only the police hadn’t listened to Malloy last night. His boss would be in prison, and Rollin and Gilbert would be getting ready to escort him back to Cleveland.

  Henry shouted a good morning from the top of the steps, and then he bounded down the stairs and jumped on Rollin’s back.

  “Giddy up,” Henry said, smacking Rollin’s side.

  Rollin stood up, lifting Henry to his shoulders, and he twirled the boy around. The sound of Henry’s laughter drained away some of Rollin’s weariness and frustration.

  “I’m going to find a bed upstairs,” Gilbert said as he dragged himself into the sitting room. A pillow was tucked under one arm and a quilt trailed behind him like a blue and white tail. The lines around his ex-partner’s eyes looked as wrinkled as the quilt.

  Henry tugged on Rollin’s ear to steer him left.

  “Where’s your mother?” Rollin asked as he slowed his spin.

  “Isaac—” Henry started, and Rollin stopped.

  “What about Isaac?”

  “He wasn’t feeling real well again this morning so Katie went to the barn for him.”

  “Went out?” Rollin turned toward Gilbert. “You let her go outside alone?”

  His old partner shrugged. “She said she had to milk the cows.”

  “You could have helped her.”

  Gilbert clutched the pillow tighter to his chest. “I don’t know the first thing about milking cows.”

  “But Malloy—”

  “Malloy doesn’t know what my car looks like.”

  “But it’s a car, Gil. In the driveway of an Amish home.”

  “We hid it behind the barn.”

  “He could still find it.”

  “You got the Cardanos,” Gilbert said with a yawn. “And Malloy is on the run. He’s miles from here by now.”

  Rollin looked out the front window. He couldn’t see Gilbert’s car, but Malloy was a smart guy and could be charming if he wanted. One of the neighbors might tell him about the visitor staying at the Lehmans’ house.

  Malloy wouldn’t run until he found Rollin. Once he eliminated his former detective, Malloy could smooth things over with the Sugarcreek police and convince the chief back in Cleveland that he’d only been doing his job at the Bowmans’ farm.

  Henry on his shoulders, Rollin galloped to the back door. “Let’s go check on your mother, champ.”

  “Maybe she’ll let us help with the milking.”

  “Maybe.”

  Bennett was at his heels as Rollin stepped out into the yard. And as he walked, he glanced down at Henry’s bare foot. At his toes.

  Rollin blinked hard, and then he stopped.


  “What’s wrong?” Henry asked.

  Rollin couldn’t tear his gaze away from Henry’s foot. At the smaller toe curved outward, like it was dancing away from the others. Just like Liz’s toes.

  Rollin shook his head and stepped forward again. “I have a few questions for your mother.”

  *

  A pail of milk in each hand, Katie felt silly traipsing through the barn in her navy skirt and blouse. Now that she’d decided to leave Sugarcreek, it didn’t seem right for her to continue hiding behind her kapp and dress. She wasn’t an Amish woman nor would she ever be one. This place had been a safe harbor for her for years, and she was grateful for it, but she could no longer hide.

  Through the barn door, Katie watched Rollin hurry across the driveway with Henry on his shoulders. It warmed her heart to see them together. And it tore it apart.

  She opened her lips to call out to them, but before she shouted their names, she heard Bennett’s growl. Outside the barn, someone stepped between her and the men she loved.

  The man was lean, with a white shirt that had been wrinkled and stained with green, and his blond hair stuck up across his head like bent pieces of straw. She looked up at Henry, and every feature on his sweet face was paralyzed with fear.

  The milk pails shook in her hands as she quietly set them down. The stranger’s hands were in front of him, and she knew what he held.

  She wouldn’t let this wolf of a man threaten her son.

  Removing a shovel from the wall, Katie tiptoed out the door. Rollin met her eye and picked Henry off his shoulders and put him on the ground. Her son was still focused on the stranger.

  “Get behind me, Henry,” Rollin said calmly, and her son obeyed.

  “It won’t help him a bit,” the stranger said.

  Rollin stepped forward. Henry was behind him, clinging to Bennett’s neck. “You’re not going to hurt a boy.”

  “I don’t leave behind any witnesses, Rollin. No matter how old or how Amish.”

  The shovel was over her head, trembling in her hands as she crept out of the barn, into the sunshine. Her very breath a prayer. She wanted to startle the stranger, but not so much that he pulled the trigger. Just so he faced her.

  When she was about four feet behind him, Katie whistled. The man turned around.

  “No—” he started, but before he finished, the shovel hit his gun.

  The pistol blast rang in her ears, and she raised the shovel again, prepared to do whatever she had to do to protect her son. But she saw Rollin at that moment, twisting the stranger’s arms behind his back. The gun was on the ground, and one of the man’s brown shoes was soaked with blood.

  “Do you remember Heyward Malloy?” Rollin quipped.

  She threw the shovel on the ground, and for an instant, she was back in the basement at Mangiamo’s, watching Heyward pull his gun out of his jacket.

  She glanced down at his bloody shoe. Heyward had tried to shoot at her again, but this time he’d shot himself.

  Henry rushed into her arms and she hugged him close to her. Isaac and Gilbert dashed out the door behind them. Isaac in his nightclothes. Gilbert with handcuffs clanging at his side. Heyward moaned in pain as Gilbert clicked the cuffs around his wrists.

  “What happened?” Isaac asked.

  “There was a wolf,” she said, flustered. “And he was going to kill my son.”

  Isaac paused, looking at the gun on the ground and the shovel by her feet. She wondered if he was going to berate her in front of Heyward for her violence, but he didn’t. Instead, he simply said, “Well done.”

  She felt Heyward’s glare on her, and when she turned toward him, his face turned white.

  “You…” he stuttered. “I thought you were dead.”

  Instead of responding, she looked at Rollin. “Can you take him away from here?”

  Rollin nodded. “We’ll take him to the jail in Sugarcreek until we can escort him to Cleveland.”

  “I’m not going to jail,” Heyward said, but they all ignored him.

  Rollin was still looking in her eyes, searching for something. “You want to drive to Sugarcreek with me?”

  She stepped back from him. She didn’t want to leave Henry, and she shouldn’t spend another moment alone with Rollin, but then Isaac put a protective arm around Henry. And she did want to find out what happened last night.

  “I’ll stay with the family,” Gilbert said.

  “Then I’ll go.”

  Rollin yanked on Heyward’s arm, but before they stepped toward Gilbert’s automobile, Erma came rushing out of the house with her medicine bag in her hands.

  “You’re not leaving until I look at his foot.”

  Rollin hesitated, but Erma was right beside him. “The man may be following the wrong master, but he’s still a child of God.”

  Rollin shoved Heyward toward a log and he sat down. Erma tapped a vial of feverfew over a spoon and told Heyward it was for his pain. At first, Heyward refused to take the medicine, but when Erma began to shake the powder back into the vial, he changed his mind.

  Erma removed Heyward’s shoe and sock, and he moaned as she cleaned the blood around his wound and wrapped it. Then she told Rollin to find a doctor after he took Heyward to the jail.

  Rollin hooked his fingers under Heyward’s arm. As he directed his former captain to the backseat, Katie kissed Henry and climbed into the passenger seat.

  CHAPTER 34

  Rollin sat across from Katie on the picnic table, across from the Sweet Shoppe. She licked the strawberry ice cream on the cone, savoring its coolness. On one side of them dozens of children with dolls and toys and wagons paraded through the street fair, and on the other side of the park, weeping willows drooped over a slow-moving stream.

  The Sugarcreek police had taken custody of Heyward without question this morning, and Rollin told the chief he would escort Heyward back to Cleveland later today. But in their last hours together, Rollin didn’t talk to her. Instead he just stared.

  She held out the ice cream cone. “You want a lick?”

  “I don’t like ice cream.”

  She laughed. “How is that possible?”

  “I’m an oddity.”

  “I figured that out a long time ago.”

  He didn’t even smile.

  The ice cream dripped on her hand, and she licked it. “It might help if you told me what happened last night.”

  “I’m not ready yet.”

  “Okay.” She fidgeted on the bench. “Why do you keep staring at me?”

  “It’s strange to see you in ordinary clothes.”

  “You think I look ordinary?”

  “No—” he said. “I think you look beautiful.”

  The heat from her blush traveled up her neck, and she turned her head away from his gaze. Not that he couldn’t still see the red, but maybe he wouldn’t be able to see the pleasure in her eyes.

  An Amish couple walked toward the park, laughing together as they enjoyed ice cream cones, and she realized it was Jonas Miller alongside Greta Hershberger. Both of them were smiling.

  “Look at that,” she whispered, and Rollin turned his head.

  “Katie?” Jonas asked as they got closer, his eyes wide with surprise at her attire.

  “Hello, Jonas,” she said with a curt nod. “Greta.”

  She wasn’t angry at either of them, but still she felt uncomfortable. Just days ago Jonas had asked her to marry him.

  “You look—” Greta started, but struggled to finish the statement.

  “Different,” she said.

  “Ya. Different.”

  She looked at Jonas. “I’m leaving Sugarcreek.”

  Something flickered in his eyes. Relief, maybe. “Isaac and Erma will miss you.”

  “And I will miss them.”

  Greta leaned closer to her. “Did you hear what happened at the Bowmans’ place last night?”

  “Not yet.” She glanced at Rollin. “But I was about to.”

  Jonas stepped away f
rom her. “You will be safer if you leave.”

  “I pray so.”

  Greta took one of her hands and squeezed it. “You come back and visit us, Katie Lehman.”

  She smiled. “I will visit one day.”

  And when she did, she guessed she would meet a few of Jonas and Greta’s children.

  As they walked away, Rollin leaned forward. “Are you all right?”

  “I am,” she said, and she meant it. Jonas deserved a woman devoted to him, and Greta was the perfect one.

  Rollin studied her face again, so intently that she rubbed away the goose bumps on her arm. “You won’t be able to visit Erma and Isaac after you leave.”

  She leaned forward. “Why not?”

  “It’s too dangerous for you to come back.”

  The thought sobered her. She’d hoped she could come visit, but he was right. Now that Heyward knew where she’d lived, he or some of his men would find her.

  “What happened last night?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “I want to talk about this morning first.”

  The ice cream dripped on her hand again, and she looked down. She’d forgotten she was holding it. “What happened this morning?”

  “I gave Henry a ride on my shoulders.”

  She took another lick. He was trying to tell her something, but she didn’t understand. “He loves shoulder rides.”

  “Katie—”

  When he hesitated, she lowered her cone close to the table. “What happened, Rollin?”

  He took a deep breath. “I saw Henry’s toes.”

  “His toes?” she said with a laugh, and then her laughter crumbled.

  Henry’s adorable, curved toes. Just like the woman who’d birthed him.

  Her strawberry ice cream splattered across the picnic table.