The jail cell door slammed behind Jack.
Eleanor had never felt rage so cleanly.
Sheriff Wade pocketed the key.
“You know he didn’t kill my father.”
“I know what evidence says.”
“The evidence says someone stole his knife.”
Wade shrugged.
“That your legal opinion now?”
Cordelia stood beside Eleanor, pale with grief.
Their father was dead.
Whatever Silas had done, death complicated anger.
A person could hate what someone had done and still feel the empty space where that person had existed.
Eleanor felt it.
Cordelia felt it more.
She had spent her life chasing their father’s approval.
Now she would never receive it.
Jack gripped the bars.
“Eleanor.”
She turned.
“Go to Granite Ridge.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Ellison can bring federal attention.”
“I said I’m not leaving you.”
“Eleanor.”
“No.”
His eyes softened despite the circumstances.
Sheriff Wade looked amused.
“Touching.”
Eleanor turned.
“You should enjoy that badge while you have it.”
His smile vanished.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you buried Matthew Ror’s death twelve years ago.”
“Eight.”
Eleanor smiled coldly.
“Interesting that you remember.”
Wade’s face changed.
Jack almost laughed.
Eleanor continued.
“A federal land commissioner already has documents connecting my father to fraud involving Bell property. Now the one man who could answer questions is dead, and the person who found evidence is conveniently arrested.”
She stepped closer.
“If I were you, Sheriff, I would hope Mr. Ellison is a very forgiving man.”
Wade’s confidence faltered.
Good.
Eleanor walked out.
For the next six hours, she and Cordelia reconstructed Silas’s final morning.
A maid named Ruth had brought coffee at seven.
Silas had dismissed her.
At seven-thirty, Harold Pruit arrived.
That mattered.
Harold denied entering the study.
Ruth said otherwise.
At eight, Sheriff Wade appeared, claiming he had received a message from Silas.
At eight-fifteen, Silas was found dead.
Jack’s knife was in his chest.
“Why Harold?” Cordelia asked.
They sat in the back room of the mercantile, away from curious townspeople.
Eleanor thought.
“Bank.”
“What?”
“Our father owed the Pruits forty thousand dollars.”
Cordelia nodded.
“If Father died before the note was collected…”
“The bank takes everything.”
“But they were already going to.”
“Yes.”
“So why kill him?”
Eleanor’s mind returned to the Bell parcel.
“Unless Father had something else.”
They searched Silas’s study with Ruth’s help.
The sheriff had removed the body but left blood on the rug.
Eleanor forced herself not to look at it.
Cordelia opened drawers.
Eleanor checked books.
Nothing.
Then Cordelia noticed the whiskey cabinet sat several inches farther from the wall than she remembered.
They moved it.
Behind it was a steel box.
Locked.
Cordelia found the key beneath Silas’s desk.
Inside were bank records.
Letters.
And a contract.
Eleanor read the first page.
Then the second.
“Oh my God.”
Cordelia looked over her shoulder.
“What?”
Their father’s forty-thousand-dollar debt had not begun as a ranch loan.
It began as an investment partnership.
Silas Witham and Benjamin Pruit—Harold’s father—had financed unauthorized mineral exploration on the Bell parcel.
They knew Eleanor owned it.
They had known for years.
Mining expenses, equipment and bribes had consumed nearly forty thousand dollars.
The debt Silas claimed threatened the ranch was partly money spent trying to steal Eleanor’s silver.
Cordelia sat down.
“He sold you to fix a debt he created stealing from you.”
“Yes.”
Another letter revealed something worse.
Benjamin Pruit had obtained an assay.
Estimated value of the silver vein:
At least three hundred thousand dollars.
Possibly twice that.
In 1888 money, it was a fortune large enough to change generations.
A final note from Silas had been written the night before his death.
Pruit intends to claim the parcel when the bank forecloses. He believes Eleanor’s transfer to Ror invalidates her ownership. Ellison may prove otherwise. Must tell Eleanor everything.
Eleanor read it again.
“He was going to confess.”
Cordelia whispered, “And someone stopped him.”
A board creaked behind them.
Eleanor turned.
Harold Pruit stood in the doorway.
A revolver in his hand.
Cordelia froze.
Harold smiled.
“You Witham girls were never particularly good at minding your own business.”
Eleanor’s fear rose.
But she did not let it reach her face.
“You killed him.”
Harold shrugged.
“Your father became sentimental.”
Cordelia whispered, “You murdered him.”
“He was going to destroy both families.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “He was going to destroy yours.”
Harold’s eyes narrowed.
“You always were smarter than people thought.”
“People like you.”
“Exactly.”
He entered the room.
“Give me the papers.”
Eleanor held them tighter.
“No.”
Harold laughed.
“You’re in no position to negotiate.”
“Neither are you.”
“I have a gun.”
“And half of Fallon Creek saw you enter this building.”
“That won’t matter.”
“Why?”
“Because by morning, you and Cordelia will be gone.”
Eleanor’s stomach tightened.
“To where?”
“Bitter Pass.”
Understanding came.
“You’re going to make it look like we ran.”
“After freeing your lover from jail? Perhaps.”
He smiled.
“Or perhaps Jack kills you both in a fit of rage.”
Cordelia stepped forward.
“You are insane.”
Harold swung the revolver toward her.
Eleanor moved instinctively.
“Don’t.”
Harold laughed.
“Still protecting her?”
Eleanor looked at Cordelia.
“Yes.”
Cordelia’s face changed.
Harold motioned toward the door.
“Walk.”
They obeyed.
Outside, dusk had fallen.
A wagon waited in the alley.
Benjamin Pruit sat behind the reins.
The banker looked older than Eleanor remembered.
And far more frightened than his son.
“Harold,” Benjamin hissed, “we agreed no more killing.”
Cordelia stared.
“You knew?”
Benjamin looked away.
Harold shoved Eleanor toward the wagon.
“My father knows when to let me handle difficult matters.”
Eleanor climbed aboard.
Cordelia followed.
As Harold secured their hands, Eleanor looked toward the street.
No one.
Then she saw movement on a rooftop.
Jack?
Impossible.
He was jailed.
The wagon started.
They traveled north.
Toward Bitter Pass.
Eleanor worked her wrists against the rope.
Cordelia leaned close.
“Can you get free?”
“No.”
“I might.”
Eleanor looked down.
Cordelia’s wrists were smaller.
For once, the difference between their bodies became useful in the opposite direction of everything Cordelia had ever implied.
Eleanor whispered, “Keep working.”
After twenty minutes, Cordelia slipped one hand free.
She waited.
At a bend in the road, she untied Eleanor.
Eleanor did not move.
Harold rode behind them.
Benjamin drove.
“What now?” Cordelia whispered.
Eleanor looked at the wagon wheel.
“At the bridge.”
“What?”
“Trust me.”
The bridge over Fallon Creek approached.
As the horses slowed, Eleanor stood.
Then threw herself sideways into Harold.
Her weight struck him like a battering ram.
He flew from his saddle.
The revolver discharged into the air.
Cordelia grabbed Benjamin from behind.
The horses panicked.
The wagon swerved.
Eleanor rolled through mud.
Harold lunged for the revolver.
A shot rang out.
Not Harold’s.
Dust jumped beside his hand.
“Leave it.”
Jack Ror stood on the ridge.
Sheriff Wade stood beside him.
Eleanor stared.
Harold did too.
“What the hell?”
Jack walked downward, rifle steady.
Behind him came Dr. Mercer, Commissioner Ellison and four federal marshals.
Eleanor laughed breathlessly.
Harold’s face collapsed.
Sheriff Wade spat into the dirt.
“Turns out killing Silas with a man’s knife works better when the man hasn’t been locked in a room full of witnesses all night.”
Harold grabbed for his pistol.
Jack fired.
The bullet knocked the weapon away.
Harold screamed, clutching his hand.
Federal marshals surrounded him.
Benjamin Pruit sagged.
“It was him,” he said immediately.
Harold stared at his father.
“You coward.”
Benjamin continued.
“Harold killed Silas. Harold ordered the hotel fire.”
“And Matthew Ror?” Jack asked.
Benjamin went silent.
Jack stepped closer.
“Matthew.”
Benjamin’s shoulders shook.
“Silas confronted him on the ridge.”
Jack’s face became stone.
“What happened?”
“They fought.”
Eleanor held her breath.
“Silas pushed him.”
Jack closed his eyes.
Eight years of uncertainty ended in one sentence.
“Sheriff Wade helped cover it up,” Benjamin added.
Wade cursed.
A marshal took his gun.
Eleanor looked at Jack.
He seemed both relieved and broken.
She approached slowly.
“I’m sorry.”
Jack nodded.
For a second she thought he might turn away.
Instead he pulled her into his arms.
Eleanor froze.
Then held him.
His embrace was careful at first.
Until she tightened hers.
Then it wasn’t careful anymore.
He buried his face against her hair.
“I thought they took you.”
“They did.”
His arms tightened.
“I thought I’d lose you.”
Something inside Eleanor stopped.
He released her slowly.
Their faces remained inches apart.
Neither spoke.
Cordelia, covered in mud, cleared her throat.
“For what it’s worth, I would prefer not to be kidnapped again tonight.”
Jack stepped back.
Eleanor almost laughed.
Federal authorities took Harold, Benjamin and Wade into custody.
Silas’s murder was solved.
Matthew’s death would finally be investigated.
The Bell claim was protected.
It should have felt like an ending.
It didn’t.
Because before leaving for Granite Ridge, Commissioner Ellison approached Eleanor.
“There is one more matter.”
He handed her a letter.
It had arrived at his office that morning.
The handwriting was unfamiliar.
But the signature was not.
Margaret Bell Witham.
Eleanor’s knees nearly gave out.
The letter contained only six lines.
My dearest Eleanor,
If this reaches you, then the truth has finally escaped your father’s house.
I have prayed for twelve years that you would find me.
I am in Denver.
Please come.
There is something you must know before you decide whether you can forgive me.
Eleanor pressed the letter to her chest.
Her mother was alive.
And after twelve years of mourning a grave that held no one, Eleanor was finally going to meet the woman who had never stopped waiting for her.
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