The café door opened, and Millie Fisher walked in. “Oh my word, we have the whole group from Swissmen Sweets here this morning.”

  I smiled at her. Millie was a petite Amish woman Lois’s age. She was also the village matchmaker and helped Amish couples find love. She had an innate talent for knowing when a couple would fail and when a couple was meant to be together. She had once told me that Aiden and I were meant to be. I took that encouragement to heart, no matter what Aiden might decide about his job opportunity with BCI.

  Lois and Millie had grown up together, and despite their very different lifestyles, they were the best of friends. In a way, I kind of imagined they were what Cass and I would be like in forty years, minus the Amish part. I was definitely Millie to Cass’s Lois.

  “We came for the pancakes,” Charlotte said.

  “Very wise choice!” Millie said. “All is well, Charlotte.” Charlotte blushed and nodded.

  I wrinkled my brow. What was going on here?

  “And who’s this little girl?” Millie asked.

  Maami told her in a hushed voice.

  “Oh,” Millie said. “The poor thing. It’s a gut thing that Lois can sign with her.”

  Lois came back and warmed up our coffees. “Millie, there you are! You are late today.”

  “Goat problems,” Millie said.

  Lois nodded as if this made complete sense. Millie waved to us and went to sit in her normal spot by the counter.

  “Lois,” I said when she buzzed by again, “would it be possible for you to teach us some of the most useful signs so we can talk to Hannah?”

  Lois’s eyes lit up. “I would love to do that. I have to tell you, I am a bit rusty. I divorced my second husband over twenty-five years ago.”

  “Anything will help,” I assured her. “The only signs I know are fingerspelling, yes, no, and cat.” I made the sign for cat, and Hannah smiled as she continued to happily dig into her pie, ignoring the pancakes in front of her altogether. Charlotte was right; I had never seen someone who loved lemon so much. Other than Emily Keim.

  “Right now we’re in the middle of the breakfast rush, but if you come back after two this afternoon, I can give you a crash course. That’s our slowest time—after lunch and before we gear up for dinner.”

  “Sounds perfect,” I said. “Even if I can’t come, you can teach Charlotte. I think Hannah will enjoy the lesson, too, watching us fumble as we try to learn.”

  “Why wouldn’t you be able to come?” Charlotte asked.

  “Don’t you know? She needs to solve a murder.” Lois gave me another wink.

  I didn’t correct her because it was true.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When we got back to the candy shop, Hannah was in much brighter spirits. Lois had given us a stack of children’s books, crayons, and coloring sheets to entertain her, saying, “We keep these in the café to entertain the kiddos that come in so their parents can have a quiet meal. I can’t say that it always works, but it might help Hannah get through the day at Swissmen Sweets. If you need anything, or need me to come over and sign for you, just holler. I’ll come as quick as I can.”

  I hugged her. “Thank you. You can’t know how much this means to us. You are the best neighbor we could have at a time like this. You have a pretty big heart, too, Lois.”

  “Don’t you let that get out.” She winked at me.

  Back at Swissmen Sweets, Maami got Hannah settled at one of the café tables at the front of the shop with a few of the books that Lois had given her.

  Maami smiled at me. “I know better than to give her all the books and coloring books at once. Children are soon bored with activities that are no longer new to them. You certainly were that way when you were young.” She tucked the rest of the books, coloring books, and crayons on a shelf under the cash register.

  Then she filled a small white box with lemon drops and set them on the table next to Hannah. Hannah looked up from her book with glowing eyes. She popped one of the lemon drops in her month and went back to the book.

  “Maami, she just had pie and pancakes with maple syrup at the Sunbeam Café. I doubt she needs any more sugar.”

  “I know we can’t just feed the child sugar, but a few lemon drops never hurt anyone.”

  I smiled. “Okay, Maami.” I glanced back at the table where Hannah sucked on lemon drops and flipped the book pages. She didn’t know what had happened to the only mother she had ever known. It made me ache to think that I neither had the authority nor the ability to tell her.

  I texted Aiden and asked about the social worker he had promised. I got a frowny face in response. SHE’LL BE THERE LATER THIS AFTERNOON. I THINK CLOSE TO THREE. SHE HAS A LOT OF CLIENTS.

  I UNDERSTAND THAT, I texted back. BUT IT DOESN’T SEEM RIGHT TO KEEP HANNAH IN THE DARK ABOUT HER MOTHER’S DEATH. EVERYONE IN THE VILLAGE KNOWS. IF SHE COULD HEAR, SHE WOULD ALREADY KNOW BECAUSE PEOPLE ARE TALKING.

  I AGREE, BUT THE SOCIAL WORKER SAID THAT SHE NEEDS TO ASSESS HANNAH AND BE THERE WHEN SHE IS TOLD ABOUT ROSEMARY. I’M SORRY. MY HANDS ARE TIED. WITH NO LEGAL GUARDIAN ALIVE, SHE IS A WARD OF THE COUNTY.

  BUT HER BIOLOGICAL MOTHER IS ALIVE.

  EVEN IF I AGREE WITH YOU, THAT’S AN ASSUMPTION YOU ARE MAKING.

  I stared at the screen. Dots flashed as Aiden was typing; then I read, WE DON’T EVEN KNOW IF EMILY WANTS HER. SHE’S NOT MARRIED TO HANNAH’S FATHER, AND SHE HAS ANOTHER BABY ON THE WAY. SHE MIGHT WANT TO KEEP HANNAH IN HER PAST.

  EMILY WILL WANT HER, I texted back. I HAVE NO DOUBT IN MY MIND.

  I waited for a response text, but there was none. I told myself that wasn’t a reflection on how he saw Emily, but that he’d been called away. Countless times, our text or phone conversations ended abruptly because Aiden was called away by his job. However, he was always nearby. I knew I would see him if he had a moment to pop in and say hello at Swissmen Sweets or even at the end of the day for dinner. Would that still be the case if he took the job with BCI? His jurisdiction would be the entire state of Ohio. There’d be many nights that he might not come home to Harvest. Could I live with that?

  I shook the dark thoughts from my head. What Aiden decided to do for his career wasn’t as important at the moment as Hannah’s well-being. An even darker thought hit me. Was Hannah safe? I felt she was safe at the candy shop, but I had seen that figure outside Swissmen Sweets the night before. Was it possible that the killer believed Hannah knew something about the murder? If that was true, I had a greater motive than ever to solve Rosemary Weiss’s murder. I had to protect this young girl at all costs.

  Hannah was happy, and we had everything ready to open the shop, so I turned to my grandmother. Before I could even speak, she said, “Go.”

  “Go?” I asked. “I didn’t even say I was going somewhere.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t have to. You have that look in your eye like you do when you feel you need to make a move. Charlotte and I will be fine here in the shop today. We will care for Hannah. I know you’re worried about her.”

  “I am,” I admitted.

  “We both know the way to keep her safe is to find out what happened to Rosemary. You are the best person to do that.”

  I raised my brow. “What about Aiden? He is a sheriff’s deputy.”

  She smiled. “Aiden will do what he can, but you have a way of getting people to speak to you that I have rarely seen in another person, Bailey. Some might even say it’s your divine gift.”

  “I have never thought of having a divine gift before.”

  She shrugged. “Just because you have not thought about it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Gott gives each and every one of us gifts. Each is different. Each is special. It is up to you what you do with them.” She patted my cheek. “You, my granddaughter, are using them well. You make me very proud, and pride is not something I am eager to admit.”

  I held my grandmother’s hand as she pressed it against my cheek because I knew how true that was. In the Amish world, pride of any kind was sin. Even knowing that, knowing her church would see it as a fault, I was joyful that she was proud of me. For her and my grandfather to be proud of me was all I’d ever wanted. I’d thought for a very long time that I had to earn that pride by becoming the top chocolatier in New York City. I had since learned my grandparents were prouder of me when I cared for others.

  I said goodbye to Charlotte and waved goodbye to Hannah, who was halfway through her box of lemon drops already.

  I was off to find the man Hannah had known as her father when she was very young: Rosemary’s husband, Isaac Weiss. I hoped he wouldn’t be hard to find. Dinah had said that he worked in a hardware store in Wooster. After a quick search, I found only one Amish hardware store in Wayne County, so I guessed that was my best bet. It was time to drive back to Wooster and see if that bet would pay off. For Hannah’s sake, I prayed it would.

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, I sat in the giant parking lot outside of Mueller Hardware Store and stared. It wasn’t a hardware store; it was a hardware palace. It was a giant warehouse that could rival any big-box home-improvement center in the state. Could such a giant enterprise really be Amish? If the line of Amish buggies and wagons hitched to the long posts behind me were any indication, it could. The numerous Amish here told me I was at the right place.

  Shaking my head, I got out of the car. I walked to the front of the massive building and stepped through the automatic doors, which, to be honest, didn’t seem very Amish either. My head was spinning. I found myself in a giant rotunda, which seemed better suited to a grand hotel than a place to buy a lawnmower.

  An Amish man in a bright white shirt, jeans, and tan suspenders appeared to be speaking to a customer. He had a trim salt-and-pepper beard, and his belly hung out over the waistband of his jeans.

  Even more shocking than the store’s grand entrance or overall size was the person I saw speaking to the man in suspenders. It was Abel Esh. The two men laughed at something Abel said, and then Abel glanced over his shoulder. When he saw me standing there, he narrowed his eyes. He said something to the other man in Pennsylvania Dutch. They laughed again and split up.

  “Are you lost, Bailey King?” Abel asked as he marched by.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “I’m shopping. I could ask you the same thing.” Then he marched out of the store, but I noted he wasn’t carrying any shopping bags with him.

  “Welcome to Mueller Hardware. Can I help you find something?” asked the man who had been talking to Abel.

  “Why was Abel Esh here?” I asked.

  “Oh, you know Abel?”

  I nodded.

  He broke into a wide smile. “I was just giving him some advice on tractors. It is one of our specialties.”

  I frowned. Something about this felt off . . .

  “Do you work here?”

  He laughed as if that was the funniest question he’d ever heard. “If I didn’t, why would I ask to help you?”

  “Oh, then I think I might need your help. This place is so big. It’s not really what I expected of an Amish hardware store.” I marveled at the size of the place. I noticed that, outside the rotunda, there was a staircase that led to a second floor and an elevator. An elevator in an Amish business? Now I had seen everything.

  He chuckled and looped his thumbs around his suspenders. “We get a lot of tourists coming in here and gawking at the entrance. It is something, isn’t it? The owner wanted to make a statement and show off Amish craftsmanship at the same time. I guess it is more grandiose than what people expect in this part of the world.”

  I stared at the skylights that were twenty feet above my head. The bright blue sky was clearly visible through the crystal clear glass. All I could think was that it must be a historic pain to keep those skylights that clean.

  “So what can we do for you? If you’re just visiting, I can direct you to the Amish-made goods. Those are always crowd pleasers with people from out of town. Every Englischer wants something handmade by the Amish.” He chuckled at that.

  I didn’t correct his assumption that I was a tourist. I was often mistaken for a tourist in Holmes County as well. By those who didn’t recognize me from my cable show, at least. As he was an Amish man, I thought it was a safe bet that he had never seen Bailey’s Amish Sweets on Gourmet Television.

  “I would love to see those Amish-made gifts. I have a friend who lives in New York City, and she cannot get enough of anything made by the Amish.” It was true. Cass was obsessed with Amish-made goods. It was one thing she had trouble finding in New York.

  “New York City. My, that’s a far cry from here.”

  Having lived in both places, I knew that better than most in both the figurative and literal sense.

  He started walking, but I stopped him. “Before we go look at the Amish-made goods, I was wondering if you could direct me to the right department.”

  He turned around with the same ready smile. “What department would that be?”

  “The one that Isaac Weiss works in. Do you know him?”

  Some of the color drained from his face. “Isaac Weiss? Why would you want to find him?”

  I considered for half a second mentioning the murder, but I couldn’t think of a way it would get me any closer to Isaac. Instead, it might very well get me kicked out of the giant hardware store altogether. “I just have some business to discuss with him,” I said, hoping it sounded vague, yet important enough to be pointed in the right direction.

  “Miss, you don’t want to talk to Isaac Weiss. I promise you don’t.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I studied the Amish man in front of me. “What do you mean?”

  He looped his thumbs through his suspenders. “There are a whole host of people who can help you find what you need in this store, but don’t ask Isaac for help. You will be sorry if you do.”

  “I’d like to talk to him.” I tried to sidestep around him. If this man would not tell me where I could find Isaac, I knew there were a whole host of other people in a store this big whom I could ask.

  He stepped into my path. “He’s an angry Englischer, Miss. You don’t want to become tangled up in that.”

  “I heard that he was Amish,” I said, hoping to get a reaction. Dinah had told me that Isaac had left the Amish, but there had to be some reason this man was so insistent that I not look for Isaac.

  He swallowed, and his Adam’s apple bounced up and down. His jovial expression was long gone. “He’s not Amish. He’s not like any Amish man I have ever known.”

  “If you can tell me where to find him, I’ll be on my way.” I took another step to the side. Maybe he would eventually get the hint.

  “I can’t do that, miss.” With that he walked away.

  I frowned as I watched him go. Even though Mueller Hardware was enormous, I was confident that I could find Isaac, assuming he was in the store. I stepped deeper into the retail space and found a young Amish man without a beard stocking birdseed. He glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, far less friendly than the first man I’d met.

  “Excuse me?” I gave the best low-maintenance-customer expression I could muster.

  He looked at me with a scowl. It seemed to me it was a universal expression with some teenagers, whether they were Amish or not. It was also an expression I had seen on Abel Esh’s face at least a hundred times, though he was far from being a teenager anymore. Thinking about Abel brought my thoughts back to Emily and Hannah, which was a good reminder as to why I was here.

  “I’m looking for Isaac Weiss. Can you tell me where I might find him?”

  “Ya,” he answered without hesitation. “Isaac works in the machining department on the basement level.”

  I stared him. “This giant store has a basement?”

  “The stairs are over near plumbing fixtures.” He turned back to stocking the shelves.

  I thanked his back and followed the signs to plumbing fixtures. From there, I spotted the open stairwell.

  The hum and thrum of machines welcomed me to the basement. While the main floor was open and cavernous, the basement level felt closed in, and almost too bright. Despite a lack of natural light, there was enough illumination in the basement to show every last speck of dust in the air.

  People outside of Amish Country were surprised the Amish had access to electricity. But it was safe to say that most Amish used electricity in their businesses in order to stay up to code. Some even had it in their homes. The difference being the businesses might be attached to the large public power grid, while the homes were not. More and more Amish homes were powering electric lights and small appliances with solar power. That kept them off the grid and independent from English society. I knew not all Amish agreed with that use. For example, Ruth Yoder, the bishop’s wife, had many choice words to say about solar anything.

  So the electric lights and machines in the basement didn’t surprise me. However, the number of machines was a tad overwhelming with all the saws, drills, and engravers working at the same time.

  “Can I help you?” an English man in a plaid shirt asked me. He had dark hair that was graying at the temples and was clean-shaven. “This floor is only for staff and contractors. The shopping area is back upstairs.” He pointed at the steps that I’d just come down.

  “I didn’t know that,” I said, but made no motion to leave. “It’s pretty noisy down here.”

  He shrugged. “You get used to it after a while, or your hearing is so damaged that you don’t notice it as much.”

  “What’s happening down here?”

  “We cut lumber, metal poles, and that sort of thing for a lot of the Amish contractors in Wayne County and Holmes County. We can do the work much faster here than they can at the job site. For some of them, they’d have to do the cutting by hand. It’s not as precise as what we can do here, and it is time-consuming when they just want to get a house or barn up and finished.” He shifted his stance. “I can tell you more about it upstairs, but you really shouldn’t be on this floor.”