The Silent Order

by Melanie Dobson

  Katie let go of the doorknob. “I will take over for you.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “You need to rest.”

  Erma glanced toward the dark window. “Maybe for a few hours.”

  “For as long as you want to sleep.”

  Erma nodded toward the door. “Did you check on Henry?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Go,” Erma said, waving her toward the door.

  Katie stepped back into the hallway, her heart pounding. She didn’t want Rollin to be in her house, near her son, nor did she want to be alone with him in the darkness, but she would do it to help Erma. This was her cross to bear—a cross she could never escape, no matter how far she ran.

  Opening the door to her room, she looked down at her son asleep on the floor. His blond hair rested in soft ringlets around his face. Even in his sleep, she could see his inquisitiveness. His mischievousness.

  Henry was God’s gift to her, and the love for him swelled within her. She’d tried to give him a life away from the world, a place where he could be protected, but the outside world kept finding her. Was there no place she could take him to keep him safe?

  She knelt down, kissing his cheek. No matter what happened, Rollin could never know the truth.

  *

  A gun blasted into the night, and Rollin ducked under a tree. Someone was chasing him, trying to kill him. He sprinted through the forest again, running for his life, but the roar of the guns was growing louder, like thunder echoing through a canyon.

  In the distance, a light glowed in the blackness and he raced toward it. As he drew closer, the light ballooned into a sphere that was bigger and brighter than a harvest moon. Then a face, a woman’s face, formed in the light. He stopped running.

  The woman teased him with her eyes, her smile. He reached for her, but he couldn’t feel her skin.

  Another gun blasted behind him, and he threw his body in front of the light, trying to stop the bullet from wounding her. But he couldn’t stop the bullet.

  The light faded away.

  Rollin swiveled around, begging the invisible assassins to shoot him too, but they didn’t shoot. The guns had faded away with the light.

  Rollin groped in the darkness for Liz, but instead of his fingers slipping through the air, he felt her skin this time. Her hand. He grasped her fingers, squeezing as hard as he could. This time he wouldn’t let her go.

  “It’s going to be all right, Rollin.”

  Her tender words soothed him for a moment, but it wasn’t going to be all right. When he woke up, she would slip into the darkness again.

  Cool water dripped over his forehead, and he tried to shake it away. But he wouldn’t let go of the hand.

  Minutes passed. Or hours, perhaps. He didn’t know. When he finally opened his eyes, the room seemed to whirl around him, and he squeezed the gentle hand again, afraid to face the woman who let him grasp it. Afraid she would disappear.

  Slowly he turned his head and saw those beautiful blue eyes looking back at him. Her black hair had turned into a honey brown, resting in soft waves across her shoulders. He released her hand and reached for her face.

  “Your eyes…” he said, brushing his hand over her cheek. “Liz?”

  She pulled her hand away. “You’re hallucinating again.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  She removed the cold cloth from his head, looking away from him. “My name is Katie Lehman.”

  His head hurt when he shook it. She shouldn’t lie to him. “Why are you here?”

  “I live here,” she said.

  “They killed you.”

  “Who killed me?”

  He tried to scoot up on the pillow, but his entire body ached. “I don’t know.”

  He watched her move toward the basin, soaking the cloth and wringing it out. He wanted to hold her hand again. Touch her cheek. But the moment had passed. She’d only let him touch her when he was asleep.

  She dabbed the cloth over his head again. “Who is this Liz?”

  “A girl I knew in Cleveland.”

  “Is she still in Cleveland?”

  “She’s…” he started. “She died a long time ago.”

  Katie paused, rocking back on the chair. “Did you try and rescue her?”

  “I couldn’t save her,” he said. “I wasn’t there.”

  She looked out the open window. “You should have saved her.”

  He nodded. He hadn’t protected her, and the guilt had haunted him for almost a decade.

  The door opened, and Erma slipped inside. As Katie stood up, her gaze lingered on him for another moment before she looked over at Erma. “His fever has diminished.”

  Erma scooted around her and placed her hand on his cheek and then his neck.

  “He is better.” Erma sat in the chair. “I’ll watch over him for the rest of the night.”

  “Liz?” he called again.

  She didn’t turn around, but she stopped by the door. “I’m not your Liz.”

  CHAPTER 14

  “I need to talk to you, Mamma,” Antonio said as he pounded on her bedroom door and jostled the locked knob.

  She rolled over and checked her clock. It was barely five. “Come back in two hours.”

  His voice escalated. “I need to talk to you now.”

  She eased her feet over the side of the bed and rubbed her eyes. Her son’s late-night footsteps were as familiar to her as the hourly toll of the bells at Holy Rosary. She’d heard Salvatore come home around an hour ago, but she hadn’t heard Antonio until now.

  She tugged her floral wrapper around her and tied it before she put on her pink house slippers. Then she opened the door.

  She barely recognized the angry, bloodshot eyes of the child she’d birthed twenty-nine years ago. The boy she’d tried to rear to be a God-fearing man. Instead, her only son didn’t fear anyone or anything expect perhaps his father. And even then, she wasn’t convinced that Antonio was actually afraid of Salvatore.

  Her son craved Salvatore’s pride like she craved the comfort of alcohol, but Antonio’s obsession to earn his father’s approval would never be realized. Salvatore reserved all pride for himself.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  Antonio shoved his hands in the pockets of his jacket, like he was afraid he might use them if they weren’t secured. “Giuseppe told me he saw you out on Mayfield last night.”

  Celeste took a deep breath, calming her nerves. Her own son didn’t even trust her anymore.

  “Why is Giuseppe reporting my whereabouts to you?” she asked.

  He crossed his arms. “What were you doing out last night?”

  “I went on a walk.”

  “A walk?” Antonio snickered. “You never go for walks.”

  “You don’t know everything about me, Antonio.” She fussed with the belt on her wrapper. “I can take a walk whenever I want.”

  “Giuseppe said you were close to Wells’s apartment.”

  “Whose apartment?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Rollin Wells.”

  “Rollin Wells?” She forced herself to sound appalled. “I despise that man.”

  “Then why were you at his place?”

  Celeste slipped around her son and padded down the long hallway. She heard Salvatore’s snores as she passed his door, and Antonio didn’t dare say anything. There would be hell to pay if either of them woke him up.

  Antonio followed her down the back stairs and through the kitchen. She didn’t need coffee to wake up this morning. She needed something to calm her nerves.

  In the corner of the living room, she poured herself a glass of whiskey at the bar and took a sip of the wretched drink. Her son stood across the room, watching her closely, as if the truth would pour out of her if he waited long enough.

  She drained the whiskey glass and set it on top of the baby grand piano that Antonio used to play almost every night until Salvatore convinced him that gangsters didn’t play piano. She missed the musi
c and she missed the laughter that used to ring from his lips when his fingers danced across the keys.

  “Why were you at Wells’s apartment?” he repeated.

  “I don’t know what is wrong with you, Antonio.” She reached for the glass again and tried to take a sip, but it was empty. “But I don’t appreciate the accusation in your voice.”

  He stole the glass from her hand, and for an instant, she thought he was going to hurl it against the wall, but he slammed it onto the coffee table instead. “I want to know what you told Wells.”

  She met his stare, her eyes hardening to match the anger in his. “I didn’t tell him anything.”

  “Then why were you with him?”

  “With him?” she huffed. “It’s like you’re not even listening to me. I don’t know where Rollin Wells lives, but I couldn’t sleep last night, so I took a stroll to enjoy some fresh air, something you’d know I do regularly if you ever stayed home at night.

  “Maybe Giuseppe can join me next time instead of following me around, so he won’t be confused about who I did and didn’t visit.”

  “He said you were throwing rocks at a window.”

  Her head flung back, and she laughed from her belly. “Throw-

  ing rocks?”

  Antonio shifted in his socks. She knew he couldn’t imagine it either.

  She eyed the empty glass on the table. “What was Giuseppe drinking?”

  He shook his head, conceding to her. “I don’t know.”

  She reached for her glass and filled it with whiskey again before turning back to her son. “How much did you pay Giuseppe for this information?”

  Antonio shook his head as she downed the second glass, but he knew the same as she did. As long as Giuseppe was paid well, the man would say anything.

  Her son teetered a moment. “If you ever contact Rollin Wells, Papa will be the first to know.”

  With his crisp words, her nerves curled under her skin. Would Antonio really tell his father if he caught her visiting Rollin?

  The malice in his voice drained. “I’m just trying to protect you, Mamma.”

  “Protect me from who?”

  He reached down and picked up the glass again, clutching it in his hand. “From yourself.”

  He leaned over, kissing her cheek, and it stung.

  “You know I love you,” he said.

  She nodded. “I love you too.”

  And she did love her son. With all her heart.

  *

  The aroma of coffee and salty bacon filled the large kitchen. Katie yawned as she flipped the hotcakes on the stovetop. The four hours of sleep made her feet drag, but even though her body was exhausted, her mind felt like it was on fire. She rubbed her hand on her skirt, the hand that Rollin had clutched in his sleep last night, like she could rid herself of his touch. Her muscles still ached from his grip, and the warmth from his skin lingered.

  Why had she let him hold it? Even worse, in the darkness, she hadn’t wanted him to let go.

  Katie refused to look at Erma working at the counter beside her, afraid the woman would guess the emotions warring in her head. When she left Cleveland, she left everything behind, including her friends and her family and Rollin Wells. But now Rollin was here, and she couldn’t figure out why God brought him back to her.

  Erma set plates on the table behind her, and Katie picked up the coffeepot, filling a cup for herself. Today she would do her best to help Erma get him well again, and then Isaac would take him to Sugarcreek to call whomever he needed to take him back to Cleveland. He would leave, and she would never see him again.

  A plate clattered as Erma set it on the wooden top. “How does Rollin know?”

  Katie took a long sip of the black coffee and then placed a stack of fried bacon in the center of the table. She could pretend she didn’t know what Erma was talking about. Pretend she hadn’t even heard Rollin call her Liz as she slipped out the door.

  But Erma had heard, and playing stupid would only deepen the guilt she already felt. Besides, Erma would know she was lying.

  She placed a fork on the platter of bacon. “Rollin is only guessing.”

  Erma stopped working for a moment, watching her. “He’s a mighty good guesser.”

  “That’s why we have to get him out of here.”

  Her aunt lifted a handful of utensils out of a drawer and set them on the table, letting the silence rest like a sleeping dog between them before she spoke again. “What are you hiding from me, Katie?”

  Leaning back against the counter, Katie weighed her next words. When she arrived in Sugarcreek almost nine years ago, she told Erma as much as she needed to know. She’d been too terrified to tell her aunt everything.

  The same night she knocked on Isaac and Erma’s door, her aunt recommended that she wash her mind and her heart clean of the past through Christ’s love and forgiveness. She asked God to give her peace, and He had done a miracle in her heart since that awful night. Even when her mind wandered back, her heart was at peace. He’d given her grace, and He’d given her a passion to fight for the future.

  But now Rollin was under the Lehmans’ roof, and he thought she was Liz. Erma deserved some sort of explanation.

  She took another sip of coffee and set it back on the counter. It needed some milk.

  “Rollin was a…” Katie started, stepping toward the cellar door. “He was a friend of Liz’s in Cleveland.”

  “A friend?”

  “A good friend.”

  “Katie—” Erma started, searching for her words. “How good of a friend?”

  She opened the door. “I’m going to get the milk.”

  Erma stepped toward her, gently taking her arm. “Don’t run, Katie.”

  Tears started to fill Katie’s eyes. “What else am I supposed to do?”

  “You can’t hide forever.”

  She wanted to say she wasn’t hiding, but they both knew that wasn’t true.

  Erma brushed her hand over Katie’s arm. “Tell Rollin the truth.”

  She blinked back the tears. Her aunt didn’t know what she was asking.

  “I can’t tell him.”

  “Why not?”

  Katie slipped down into the darkness of the cellar, away from her aunt’s questions. She couldn’t tell Rollin nor would she ever tell him. The truth would change everything.

  CHAPTER 15

  The front screen squeaked open below, and Rollin inched himself up in his bed. In the moonlight, he read the clock beside his bed—almost midnight. He stole to the dark window and pushed his nose against the cool glass. He didn’t see any vehicles, but lantern light spilled across the driveway, and he watched Katie’s silhouette slip into the barn.

  Was she meeting someone tonight?

  He sat on the edge of the windowsill and watched the barn door. He didn’t know what happened to Henry’s father, but if Katie was a widow, he assumed the single men in their community must be vying for the attention of such a beautiful woman. If he were Amish, he would be vying for her attention too.

  Not that he would ever become Amish.

  He eyed his bed before looking out the window again. He should go back to sleep, but he would wait until Katie came out of the barn, safe for the night.

  He lifted the window, and the breeze rocked the chair in the corner, its wooden back beating a steady percussion against the wall.

  Two days had passed since the Lehman family stole him away from the Cardanos and hid him away in their home. He didn’t remember much about his first night in the Lehmans’ home except he’d felt like a train had rolled over him. In the following hours, Erma froze his fever out of him with cold water and rags, and she filled him with terrible-tasting concoctions, but his strength slowly returned. The woman warded off the infection along with the pain.

  He rubbed his hands together. Even though two days had gone by, he could still feel Katie’s fingers woven through his. He’d touched Katie’s skin, but his mind had wandered back to the woman he once loved
. Even as the years passed, he would never be completely free of her or the guilt that accompanied her face whenever he dreamt about her.

  Still it had been a long time since he’d dreamt about Liz, and he’d thought perhaps he was almost free. Then he watched Antonio put the flowers on her grave. And he saw Katie.

  It was almost like Liz was haunting him, even as he was trying to let her go.

  It was wrong for him to cling to Katie’s hand. And it was wrong of him to watch over her from this window, jealous over the beau coming to court her.

  Still, it was uncanny how much Katie looked like Liz. It had been almost a decade since he’d seen Liz, but he would never forget the passion in her blue eyes or the sheen in her black hair. Katie’s hair was much lighter, but her eyes were almost identical to Liz’s, except he didn’t remember gold flecks in Liz’s blue eyes. Maybe he’d forgotten the gold.

  He blinked, waiting for the barn door to open again. He remembered Liz’s eyes, and he remembered her peculiar toes, the two smallest ones gracefully curved away from the others. Like they were dancing their own dance, isolated from the rest of the troupe instead of dancing alongside them.

  It sounded ridiculous, but if he could see Katie’s toes, he would know for sure she wasn’t Liz.

  He shook his head. He would never see Katie’s toes, and he might never actually speak with her again, at least not alone. She’d avoided him for the past two days. He could hear her voice in the house, but Henry delivered his food and Erma took care of his medications during the day. His arm still ached, but his energy had been restored.

  He had to get out of here and find out why Cardano’s men were staking out the area near the Yoders’ house. And he had to get away from the memory of Liz.

  His gaze remained focused on the barn door below, but it didn’t open again. Through the trees, he watched headlamps from a car careen down the road on the east side of the Lehmans’ property. There were plenty of non-Amish men and women living in the countryside who drove cars, but it was late and in his experience, the Cardano men and the other gangsters did most of their work at night.

  Standing up, he dressed quickly and rushed down the stairs. One of the English shepherds—Bennett—slept by the door, and he peered up at Rollin with dark, lazy eyes before dropping his head back onto his paws.