Katie nodded.
“Several of the elders are coming tonight. And Jonas Miller.”
Goosebumps covered her arms. Jonas should have been the first one she thought about when this happened. She should have wanted him to help her. Comfort her. But, from the moment she’d turned at the crossroads, she hadn’t thought once about him. Evil had come to Sugarcreek and not even Jonas Miller could protect her or Henry from it.
Backing toward the granary along the wall, she ducked under one of the openings. She’d work hard until the men arrived, trying to distract herself like Ruth suggested.
She turned to face the wall. And then she screamed.
Ruth was at her side seconds later, and Henry joined them. All three stared down at an English man passed out on the barn floor.
Blood had soaked through the man’s torn suit jacket and his tan pants were streaked with mud. One of his shoes was missing, and instead of a hat, thick sand-colored hair was tangled across his head. As quiet as Ruth and Henry were beside her, she assumed they all thought the man’s breath had slipped away.
But then the man shivered, and she jumped back, clutching the broom in her hands like it was a weapon. They didn’t know if this man was good or evil. Or if he was bringing evil with him.
Ruth took a step closer, and with the broom propped over her shoulder, Katie edged toward him too. Her eyes were on his hands and the leather secured around his waist.
Slowly, her gaze traveled up to his face, and even in his sleep, she saw the determination etched around his eyes, the stubble that dusted the firm line of his jaw.
This wasn’t just any English man. It was…
The man stirred, and she stepped back toward the doorway, her heart pounding. She and Henry had to run.
Ruth grasped her arm. “We can’t leave him here.”
“Henry…” she whispered. “Get out of the barn.”
“Mamm.” She looked down and saw her son’s eyes pleading with her. “We have to help him.”
She slowly lowered the broom. “I can’t.”
Ruth’s voice was a steady calm. “God brought this man to us, Katie. We must help him.”
God brought him to them?
Why was God so angry with her?
Ruth put her hand on her arm. “God is here with us, even when we are afraid.”
Katie nodded, but she wasn’t convinced God was really with them. Even if He was in their midst, it didn’t mean that God would stop the pain. Ruth would be scared as well if she knew what English men were capable of doing.
Henry took her trembling hand and together they knelt. She reached for the man’s hand and it was warm inside hers. There were no calluses on his fingertips. No soil under his nails.
She felt for his pulse along his neck, and he stirred again. Then his eyes opened—a steely blue color she’d never forget.
The blue eyes studied her face, held her captive in their gaze.
“Liz?” he whispered.
The name punctured her racing heart.
“No,” she insisted. “I…”
Ruth knelt beside her. “What did he say?”
His eyes didn’t wander from her face as he repeated the name. This time it wasn’t a question. It was a statement. “Liz.”
Katie shook her head, jumping to her feet. Ruth looked back and forth between them like she was trying to solve the puzzle of why Katie was so flustered. And why the man kept calling her Liz.
“He’s hallucinating,” Katie tried to explain.
Ruth reached for the brown holster and slipped out the pistol. She held the gun toward Katie. “We don’t need him using this.”
Katie clutched the gun with both hands, pointing it toward the ground. Too much was happening at once. She would help Ruth get him to the house, and then she would run back to the Lehmans’ home. Her cocoon.
Outside, she heard the steady trot of hooves coming up the drive, and she strained her ears to listen to the horse’s gait. She’d heard that sound many times. It was Jonas Miller coming to help set up the benches.
The elders would determine what to do with this man—no one had to find out she knew him. Isaac and Erma had harbored her secret since she arrived in Sugarcreek, and the former bishop took her secret to his grave last year. No one, not even Jonas or the new bishop, could know about her past now. It would endanger them all.
Ruth picked up her skirt and marched toward the stall door. “They will help us take him into the house.”
Katie collapsed back against the wall, the gun resting at her side.
She looked over at the man on the ground, her son standing beside him. She tried to meet Henry’s eyes, to reassure him that she would care for him no matter what, but her son’s eyes weren’t on the stranger or even on her.
Henry’s eyes were focused on the gun.
CHAPTER 10
Like stone statues, the nine Amish men sat deathly still in the large Yoder living room, their straw hats in their hands. The only sound was the slow hiss of gas from the Coleman lantern hanging above them. With their long scraggly beards, the married ones looked like mountain men in the picture books Katie had read as a child, but there was nothing rough about these men. They were strong, quiet, and determined to do the right thing before God and for their fellow men.
Isaac was in the room, along with Jonas Miller and another neighbor. The other six men were elders from their district—the men who made the decisions when the bishop wasn’t there. Some had their eyes closed, thinking and praying and waiting for a decision. Katie was in the corner rocking chair, praying quietly as she watched them.
The men had arrived hours ago and slipped out to the barn in pairs to set up the benches for tomorrow’s service. Now the sky was dark, the preparations finished for the morning, and they still didn’t know what to do about the stranger in Ruth’s guest room upstairs.
Rollin Wells’s badge was on the coffee table between them, his name printed on the brass. Plenty of English lived in Sugarcreek, and even more tourists liked to come in the summer to visit the shops and gardens. The tourists often drove their automobiles on their back roads and stopped to picnic along their creeks. Sometimes they caused trouble, wrecking their cars or mocking an Amish man or woman who wouldn’t retaliate. One time an English teenager had drowned in the pond at the Yoders’ farm.
But never before had an Englisher been shot in their community. And never had a wounded detective stumbled into one of their barns.
The cruel world was at their doorstep, and they didn’t know what to do with it.
Henry slept on Ruth’s bed upstairs, and the last Katie saw Ruth, the woman was keeping watch over Rollin Wells. He had slipped back into unconsciousness in the barn, and he didn’t wake up when the men carried him to the house and up the stairs. Lifting his head, Ruth spooned some chicken broth between his lips and cleaned his wound, but his fever had spiked. He needed a doctor.
From across the room, Jonas met her eye and gave her a slight nod before he looked away. This morning, she’d been so ready to tell him the truth, ready even to be baptized and become his wife. But she never expected to see Rollin Wells again. Especially not here.
Hours ago she’d been so certain of what she should do, but Rollin’s appearance stole away her resolve. The truth could hurt Jonas and the others. The reason she came to Sugarcreek was to save a life, not to hurt anyone. And she’d come here so she wouldn’t have to run again.
This was her home. Her security. Rollin Wells had to leave.
The light flickered, and the silence unnerved her. These men could think and pray all night, but they didn’t know who might be trailing Rollin. They needed to get him out of Ruth’s house and back into the world in which he belonged.
She scooted to the edge of the chair and cleared her throat. “This man needs to see the doctor in Sugarcreek.”
Several of the men mumbled to themselves, considering her words, until Isaac stood up. The red tones in his bushy white beard seemed to glow in th
e lantern light. “My Erma is better than any English doctor.”
The men were supposed to confer and make this decision, not her. But they didn’t know what she knew. “Erma doesn’t know how to treat a bullet wound.”
Isaac twisted the hat in his hands, his voice raspy from the illness that Erma’s tea chased away. “My wife has a cure for everything.”
Katie slunk back into her seat. None of them could argue with Erma’s ability to heal. Isaac was right—she could cure about anything with her herbs and tonics. But Erma Lehman shouldn’t be responsible for patching up Rollin Wells and his bullet wound. Couldn’t be responsible for him. An English doctor could mend his shoulder and contact the authorities up in Cleveland. Someone could come pick him up and take him back to his corrupt world.
The men discussed their options in front of her. Take the man to the village. Take him to the Lehmans’ home. Leave him here with the Yoders.
She wanted to stand up and protest taking him to the Lehmans, but how could she explain her protest without them questioning her motives? Her past?
The truth would endanger all of them, but so would having Rollin Wells in her home.
The room quieted again, everyone’s eyes on the oldest elder in the room. Jacob Hostetler, known in their community as Speaker Jacob.
Jacob cleared his throat.
“God would want us to help this man,” he declared.
Katie coughed, thumping her chest to stop, but not even Jonas seemed to notice.
Jacob continued. “I don’t know why this man is here or who hurt him, but with Isaac’s approval, I believe we should take him to Erma and let her decide if he needs to visit an English doctor.”
“He needs an English doctor,” Katie repeated, but no one acknowledged her.
The door opened, and another man walked into the room. Daniel Yoder, Ruth’s oldest son.
Daniel glanced around the room at the elders and neighbors in his mother’s home. “There was a black car driving slowly near the house,” he said. “Do we know what they’re looking for?”
Jacob nodded and began to tell him what Katie saw and heard on the road. And he told him about the man sleeping in his mother’s guest room.
Daniel’s face filled with alarm. “We’ve got to get him out of the house.”
With that statement, Jacob called for a vote, and the men voted unanimously to take Rollin to Isaac and Erma’s home.
Several of them put their hats back on. One of the men stepped toward the door.
Isaac stopped them. “But how do we get him to my house?”
The men looked at each other, and Katie sighed. It could be hours before they made that decision.
But then Jonas spoke. “I have an idea.”
Katie waited in her chair as the men huddled closer together. She hoped his idea came down from the Almighty Himself. It would be almost impossible to get the bloodhounds outside off Rollin Wells’s scent.
*
Dark petals splattered across the wallpaper, and glass shards rained down on Celeste’s prized davenport. Her son scanned the room, but there were no more vases to throw so he kicked one of the chairs. And then another.
Tomorrow she would have her housekeeper clean the stains off the carpet and wallpaper and pick up the broken pieces of roses and glass. But tonight Celeste didn’t move from her chair. If she pretended she wasn’t there, maybe Antonio wouldn’t notice her.
The vulgar words pouring out of her son’s mouth were some of the worst Celeste had ever heard, but she didn’t cower. She sat calmly on the upholstered chair with her needle and thread, weaving the green strands through the cream-colored cloth. In and out, she pushed the needle into the fabric and then pulled it through the cloth, quietly counting as she stitched tiny x’s to make the leaves for the pillow top.
Five stitches. Six. Seven.
Antonio slammed his fist on the coffee table, rattling the glass, but she didn’t take her eyes off the needle and thread. The monster emerged more often these days, swallowing her son’s charm and easy smile. Just like his father.
Stitch number eight. Number nine. Ten.
Salvatore had escaped the house after dinner, but Antonio opted for a nap before he went out for the night. He’d been preparing to leave minutes ago when the telephone rang.
Celeste answered it, her heart racing like it did whenever someone called after dark. She never knew if yet another body had been found or if someone had been sent to the hospital for the night. Or who Salvatore needed to bail out of jail.
She wished she had never picked up the phone. When she answered it, the foul words that poured out of the man’s mouth were worse than her son’s. The man was terribly rude to her, and she wondered where the mother was who should have taught him his manners. Antonio had a temper and a foul mouth, but at least he still had manners.
The doorbell rang, and she set her cross-stitch on the side table to answer it, but she didn’t have time to stand up. Antonio raced for the door.
She picked her stitching back up and waited to see who was on the other side.
When she looked up again, she watched Emanuele Cardano stumble into their house.
Emanuele was Antonio’s younger cousin by three years. His black hair was cropped close to his head, and while he always wore the fancy suits like his uncles and cousins, his lanky frame never fit quite right in them. They hung off him like a baggy shirt draped over the straw of a scarecrow.
Tonight, Emanuele’s eyes were bloodshot, but he still nodded her way. And slurred. “Evenin’, Aunt Celeste.”
“Hello, Emanuele,” she said. “You look quite dashing this evening.”
Antonio glared at her, but she just shrugged her shoulders and kept stitching. Her nephew stumbled forward into their family room, trying to balance himself on the banister. Any drunker, and the boy wouldn’t be able to walk at all.
Antonio stepped toward Emanuele again, his hand raised. At first she thought her son was going to offer to help Emanuele down the two steps into the family room. Instead Antonio slapped him across the face. Emanuele fell backward, landing on the floor.
Celeste stitched faster, her eyes focused on the pillow instead of on the man struggling to stand again. And the boy she had raised to be considerate and kind, especially to his family.
Antonio leaned over and jerked Emanuele to his feet. “You are a drunk.”
Emanuele rubbed his cheek. “I ain’t drunk.”
Antonio shoved the younger man toward one of the chairs and demanded that he stay there. Emanuele eyed Celeste for a minute and then his head fell back against the chair, his mouth hanging open and his eyes closed.
One stitch. Two stitches. Three. She mouthed as she started the next row on the leaf.
Emanuele snored beside her.
It was a joke—the way the government thought they were mandating morality in their country by controlling the liquor. No one was in control—except perhaps the organizations that formed to make and distribute the illegal stuff.
Her husband and son wouldn’t let alcohol touch their lips, but they made plenty of money off other people’s intoxication. They didn’t want to lose their heads or their wallets to a drink, so they settled for women and cigars instead. Their various enterprises provided more than enough smokes and girls.
Her needle continued weaving in and out of the material.
Neither her husband nor her son drank liquor, but it would still be the death of them. Probably the death of the entire Cardano family before it was all done.
Antonio stomped back into the living room, a glass of tomato juice in his hands, probably spiked with lemon juice and Tabasco sauce. If he decided to throw the juice too, she would be up all night scrubbing red out of the carpet.
Instead of throwing the drink, he kicked Emanuele’s shin and the boy yelped, grasping his leg to his chest. Antonio thrust the juice into Emanuele’s hands, and his cousin sputtered and choked as he sipped Antonio’s concoction. His eyes were still bloodshot whe
n he set the glass on the table, but he didn’t fall back into the seat. Instead he leaned forward, coughing one more time before he spoke.
“I thought we were meeting down at the club.”
Antonio towered over him. “Something came up.”
“I was playing poker,” Emanuele said. “And winning.”
Antonio reached out, grabbing Emanuele’s crooked tie as he pulled his face close. “I don’t care a lick about your poker hand. We’ve got a situation to discuss.”
“A situation?”
He released Emanuele’s tie. “A couple cops were sniffing around down in Sugarcreek this afternoon.”
Emanuele’s eyes shifted to her. “Junior—”
“She won’t talk.” Her son glanced her way, waving his arm. In his eyes, she saw pity—and disdain. “Will you, Mamma?”
Antonio didn’t wait for her response, inching closer to Emanuele’s face instead. “I need you to round up three other guys and get down to Sugarcreek. Tonight.”
Emanuele stood up. “Are you coming?”
“Not yet, but Nico will be waiting for you.”
“Did the cops find anything?”
Antonio’s face turned red. “Stop asking stupid questions.”
Celeste didn’t take her eyes off her stitching, but she couldn’t help but wonder the same question as Emanuele.
What were the police looking for in Sugarcreek?
And did they find it?
CHAPTER 11
Sunlight stole around the evergreen-colored drapes and rippled across the golden floor. The light crept up the edge of the quilt and lingered for a moment on each square until it reached Rollin’s face. He lifted his hand to the light, like it was a firefly he could capture and squash in his palm, but the light continued to pester him.
An antique trunk rested at the base of the window, a treadle sewing machine beside it. By the door was a narrow bench, and above the bench were four bare knobs.
His right hand flew to his side, searching for his holster, but the strap was gone, along with his Colt. Pushing himself up on his elbows, he wanted to fling his legs over the side of the bed, but a searing pain shot up through the blood-soaked cloth someone had wrapped around his other arm.
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