“No.”
I held her tighter.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Family doesn’t cost later.”
We took the tin box to the courthouse at noon.
Not quietly.
Catherine had learned something during fourteen years of hiding.
Secrets protect powerful men.
Crowds destroy them.
Dr. Whitcomb came.
Hannah Morrow came carrying Samuel.
The newspaper editor came.
So did farmers Creed had cheated, widows whose probate records had vanished, and families who claimed relief payments had mysteriously shrunk before reaching them.
By the time we reached the courthouse, nearly two hundred people filled the street.
Judge Silas Creed stepped onto the courthouse porch wearing a black coat despite the heat.
He was seventy.
White-haired.
Respectable.
The kind of man people trusted because he had spent decades practicing the appearance of honesty.
His gaze landed on Catherine.
All color disappeared from his face.
“You.”
Catherine smiled.
“Disappointed?”
Creed looked at Pike.
“Arrest her.”
The sheriff did not move.
“Edwin.”
Pike removed his badge.
Then tossed it onto the courthouse steps.
“No.”
A murmur rolled through the crowd.
Creed’s composure cracked.
“You work for this county.”
“I work for the law.”
“I am the law here.”
That was his mistake.
People remember sentences like that.
The newspaper editor wrote it down.
Catherine opened the tin box.
Creed moved toward her.
I stepped between them.
“Don’t.”
His eyes flicked toward me.
“You have no idea what this woman has done.”
“She survived you.”
“She stole county funds.”
Pike laughed bitterly.
“No, Judge.”
Everyone turned.
The sheriff reached inside his coat and produced a ledger.
“You did.”
Creed stared.
Now it was my turn to be surprised.
Pike placed the ledger on a barrel.
“I spent six months copying the orphan accounts.”
Catherine looked stunned.
“You knew?”
“I suspected.”
“Why did you come for Rose?”
“To get her before Lomax did.”
The street fell silent.
Pike looked at me.
“I couldn’t tell you that this morning. Lomax’s men were watching.”
Pieces shifted into place.
The fear in Pike’s face when he’d heard Samuel cry.
His warning not to search Martha’s house.
He had not been threatening me.
He had been trying to keep me alive.
Pike pointed at Creed.
“He stole from war widows. Orphans. Probate estates. Railroad compensation funds.”
Creed backed toward the courthouse door.
“You’re finished.”
Pike shook his head.
“No.”
Then he turned toward Catherine.
“Tell him the rest.”
Catherine’s expression changed.
There was one more secret.
I felt it immediately.
“What rest?”
She looked at me.
“Elias…”
“What?”
Her eyes moved toward Rose.
Then Samuel.
“Lucy discovered something in the probate records before she died.”
Creed shouted.
“Enough!”
He lunged for the tin box.
Rose screamed.
Pike caught Creed by the arm.
The old judge fought with sudden, desperate strength.
A pistol appeared in his hand.
I heard the crowd scatter.
Catherine pulled Rose behind her.
Pike wrestled Creed toward the railing.
Then Creed aimed past him.
Not at me.
Not at Catherine.
At Samuel.
Hannah turned.
I saw the muzzle.
Everything slowed.
Pike struck Creed’s wrist.
The gun fired.
Glass exploded above the courthouse door.
