The Amish Widow (Amish Romance Mystery) (Amish Secret Widows' Society Book 1) by Samantha Price Page B

palm to reveal a key. On the key was a tag, which said, ‘Spare Office Key.’
    Elsa-May clapped her hands. “Well done, Silvie, well done.”
    Emma stared at the key in disbelief. “What can we do with that?”
    Elsa-May pointed at her. “You, Emma, will go there tonight, no not tonight. Friday night you will go into his office and look through his files, his messages – anything you can find until you know what’s going on.”
    Maureen interrupted, “Tomorrow night is Friday night.”
    “So it is, well, you must go tomorrow night.” Elsa-May was insistent.
    Emma clutched at her throat. “Isn’t that against the law or something? I don’t want to go to jail.”
    Ettie leaned forward. “It’s breaking and entering. No wait, it may not be breaking if you have a key. But, if you have stolen the key, I’d say it’s still breaking and most certainly entering.”
    Emma jumped to her feet. “This is absurd; I can’t do it, I can’t.”
    “ Jah , you can and I’ll come with you,” Maureen said. “There’s something going on Emma, and you have to find out what it is. Don’t you want to know if you can trust Wil, or not?”
    Emma thought back to the romantic picnic she had just had with Wil. What if she had kissed him or something awful, only to find out he was not to be trusted? “ Jah , but Gott reveals all things in time.”
    “How much time do you have though, Emma? With Pluver not renewing his lease? Maybe this is an answer to prayer – Gott gave you a brain to use and two feet. He did not say that He’ll work everything out and for us to sit on our bottom, did He?” Elsa-May said, in her usual booming voice.
    Emma considered how hard Levi’s familye had worked on the farm for the past few hundred years. Now, what was to become of it if she sat on her hands and did nothing? She did not want to be the one to lose Levi’s farm to strangers or land developers. Emma exhaled a large breath. “Okay, I’ll do it.” She nibbled on a fingernail hoping that she would not regret the decision she had just made.
    Ettie said nothing, but all eyes were on her as she feebly walked across the room to a cupboard. She slowly opened the cupboard door and pulled out a plastic bag tipping the contents on the floor. Out fell three pairs of thin rubber gloves, a flashlight and three black ski masks and a pocketknife. Crouching over the contents, Ettie looked up at both Maureen and Emma. “You both going?” When they both nodded, Ettie passed the equipment to the two of them.
    They only had a day to organize the break-in. Emma met Maureen the next day at her place to go over the finer details.
    “How should we get there? We can’t really clip-clop down the street with all the buggy lights flashing in the dark and park the buggy outside his office. If anything should happen, people would surely remember a buggy parked outside,” Emma said.
    “Quite right. We’ll leave from my haus by taxi and have the taxi take us to the other end of town and we can walk the rest of the way.
    Emma nodded; it seemed a reasonable plan.
    When the time came for Emma to leave her haus to go to Maureen’s place to get a taxi to the vulture’s office, she just wanted the whole thing over with. She’d spent all night in nervous anxiety about the whole thing. Would she really find something in his office that would make sense of it all? Was Wil her friend, or was he her foe? Why did Mr. Pluver suddenly pull out of the lease after years farming the land? Had Pluver pulled out, or tried to pull out of Wil’s lease as well? Emma made a mental note to find that out. Was it all a coincidence or was there some larger conspiracy happening, and if it was – would they be able to find it out from snooping in the vulture’s office?
    As planned, they had the taxi drop them at the top of town. They walked down the street dressed in their black coats, black stockings and their black boots. Thankfully it was cold so they did not draw too much