Jonas pushed it across the table.

Hannah’s hands shook as she broke the seal.

Inside were three sheets.

She unfolded the first.

Daniel’s handwriting.

My Hannah,

If you are reading this, I have failed to get home and explain what I should have told you long ago.

Her vision blurred.

She kept reading.

Daniel confessed that he had helped Voss’s survey crews unknowingly.

By the time he understood what Voss was doing, families had already lost land.

Daniel had stolen copies of the falsified maps.

He intended to expose Voss.

Then came the sentence that made Hannah sit down.

I believe Voss knows what I took.

The next lines were worse.

I have made arrangements so Cottonwood belongs to you and the children if I do not return.

Jonas is an honorable man, though he will deny it if given the chance.

Trust what he does before you trust what he says.

Hannah’s eyes filled.

Near the bottom Daniel had written:

There is one piece of evidence I cannot carry with me. I put it somewhere no thief would think to look. If the day comes when you need it, remember this:

May always carries what matters most.

Hannah stopped breathing.

May.

Her chair struck the floor behind her.

Jonas stood.

“Hannah?”

But she was already running.

May woke frightened when Hannah entered the children’s room.

“Mama?”

Hannah knelt beside her.

“Where’s your rabbit?”

May reached beneath the blanket.

The faded rabbit appeared.

Daniel had sewn it for her shortly before his death.

Hannah took it gently.

Her fingers searched the cloth.

Nothing.

Then Luke woke.

“What is it?”

Hannah showed him Daniel’s letter.

Luke read the final sentence.

His face changed.

“Papa fixed that rabbit the morning he left.”

May frowned.

“He put something in her.”

Everyone stared.

“What?”

May pointed toward the rabbit’s belly.

“I heard crinkling. Papa said Bunny had eaten a secret.”

Hannah’s skin prickled.

Jonas brought a knife.

May refused to let him use it.

“No.”

So Hannah slowly opened an old seam with scissors.

Inside the stuffing was a narrow oilskin packet.

Seven years of dust had waited for that moment.

Hannah unfolded it.

A survey map.

Payment records.

Names.

Dates.

Signatures.

And one affidavit.

Jonas read it once.

Then lowered himself into a chair.

“My God.”

“What?”

He handed it to Hannah.

Clarence Voss had bribed Deputy Surveyor Nathan Bell to falsify property descriptions throughout three counties.

But that was not the worst part.

Daniel had included a statement from Bell himself.

It described intimidation.

Fraud.

Arson.

And one final instruction from Voss concerning a man who had stolen survey records.

Daniel Cole.

Hannah read the sentence three times.

Make certain Cole’s wagon never reaches San Marcos.