The room seemed to tilt.
Crowley continued almost conversationally.
“Briggs was instructed to frighten you into leaving Philadelphia. The railway ticket was provided. Two men were meant to meet you during the transfer in Ogden.”
Lydia remembered changing trains.
A porter directing her toward one platform.
Then a delay.
A railway conductor unexpectedly moving passengers to another carriage.
“You missed them.”
“Apparently.”
“Then why did Gideon receive me?”
Crowley looked almost amused.
“Because Rourke’s advertisement was real.”
Lydia blinked.
“I merely selected which woman answered it.”
Her mind raced.
“Why?”
“Gideon Rourke had spent thirteen years asking questions about Abigail. You possessed your mother’s name and might eventually learn what she knew.”
Crowley raised two fingers.
“Two inconveniences.”
He brought them together.
“One cabin.”
Lydia felt sick.
“You planned to kill us.”
“Eventually.”
“Then take Gideon’s land.”
Crowley’s expression changed.
Lydia knew she had struck something important.
“The land,” she whispered.
Suddenly the ledger codes made sense.
Acreage.
Railway lines.
Timber.
Water.
“You weren’t stealing random homesteads.”
Crowley said nothing.
“You were assembling them.”
Still nothing.
“Why?”
Then Lydia remembered maps at Bellweather.
Freight contracts.
Timber orders.
A proposed railway extension westward.
Her mother’s sentence returned.
The books remember what people lie about.
Lydia looked at Crowley.
“Black Elk Pass.”
His eyes hardened.
“You need the pass.”
Gideon owned land on both sides of the only practical route through the mountains.
A railway company wanting a spur through Black Elk would pay a fortune.
Not for a farm.
For access.
“How much?”
Crowley smiled again.
“More money than Gideon Rourke has the imagination to understand.”
“And how many people died?”
Crowley moved toward her.
“Enough.”
Lydia forced herself not to step back.
“One thing bothers me.”
“What?”
“My embroidery.”
Crowley stopped.
“Abigail had it.”
For the first time, genuine surprise crossed his face.
“You didn’t know.”
Crowley recovered quickly.
“Know what?”
“My mother hid something inside.”
Silence.
Then Crowley lunged.
Lydia had expected it.
She grabbed the iron poker beside the fireplace and struck his wrist.
Crowley shouted.
The pistol fell from his hand.
Lydia kicked it beneath the bed.
He slapped her.
Hard.
She crashed against the wall.
Crowley seized her shoulders.
“What was in it?”
Lydia tasted blood.
“A letter.”
“What letter?”
“One proving who you are.”
Crowley’s face became white.
Then another voice came from the hallway.
“Actually, Thomas, that isn’t the important part.”
Crowley froze.
The door opened.
Alton Briggs entered.
Lydia’s blood ran cold.
He wore an elegant traveling coat.
Two armed men stood behind him.
Crowley released Lydia.
“What are you doing here?”
Briggs smiled.
The same smile Lydia remembered from the factory.
“I came to correct an accounting error.”
Crowley’s expression tightened.
“What error?”
“You.”
Then Briggs shot him.
The gunshot exploded through the room.
Crowley collapsed.
Lydia screamed.
Briggs calmly closed the door.
Crowley lay gasping on the floor.
Lydia stared at Briggs.
Everything she thought she understood shattered again.
“You…”
Briggs looked down at Crowley.
“Edmund always became sentimental where you were concerned.”
Lydia could barely breathe.
“You ran it.”
Briggs tilted his head.
“Ran what?”
“All of it.”
A pleased expression crossed his face.
“Very good.”
Crowley coughed blood.
“Don’t…”
Briggs fired a second time.
Silence.
Then he looked at Lydia.
