Iron door.

Brass keyhole.

Her hand shook as she inserted the key.

Click.

Inside lay the red ledger.

And the letters.

Caleb stared.

Mae reached for the envelope marked ANNA RUSK.

A floorboard creaked behind them.

Owen stood in the doorway.

Revolver raised.

“I knew you’d come back.”

Mae froze.

Owen’s smile was gone.

No witnesses.

No church.

No need for kindness.

Caleb shifted.

“Don’t.”

Owen aimed at him.

“I’ve wanted to do this since I was seventeen.”

Caleb’s eyes narrowed.

“You knew me?”

Owen smiled.

“Oh, Caleb.”

Mae looked between them.

“What does he mean?”

Owen stepped inside.

“My father should’ve handled your family properly the first time.”

Caleb lunged.

The gun fired.

Mae screamed.

Caleb crashed into the desk.

Blood spread across his upper arm.

Owen cocked the revolver again.

Then Moses exploded from beneath the side table and bit Owen’s ankle.

Owen shouted.

The second shot struck the ceiling.

Caleb tackled him.

The two men hit the floor.

Mae grabbed the ledger.

Owen punched Caleb’s wounded arm.

Caleb collapsed.

Owen reached for the gun.

Mae saw it first.

She picked it up.

“Stop.”

Owen turned.

The barrel shook in her hands.

He smiled.

“You won’t.”

Mae knew why he smiled.

Because every act of violence he had committed against her depended on one belief:

Mae would endure anything before she hurt someone else.

“You’re right,” she whispered.

Owen relaxed.

Mae pointed the gun past him.

At the oil lamp.

She fired.

Glass shattered.

Flame raced across the rug.

Owen spun.

Mae grabbed Caleb.

“Move!”

They ran.

Behind them, Owen cursed and stamped desperately at the spreading fire.

By the time he escaped, Mae and Caleb were across the orchard.

And the ledger was under her arm.

They did not stop until they reached Mercy Bend at sunrise.

The courthouse steps filled before eight.

Someone rang the church bell.

Not for Sunday.

Not for death.

For testimony.

Mae stood before more than two hundred townspeople.

The ledger lay open.

Doc Mercer read the entries aloud.

Payments.

Threats.

Bribes.

Land seizures.

Deaths.

Each line stripped another layer from the Drayton name.

Clara Bell had not run away.

Her husband had sold his farm to Horace after her disappearance.

A notation showed Sheriff Nathan had been paid to alter the report.

Jacob Rusk’s death appeared exactly as Mae remembered.

“J. Rusk. Miller’s Cut. J. Hale paid fifty dollars.”

Caleb stood beside her, arm bandaged.

He did not cry.

Then they reached the letters.

Anna Rusk.

Caleb opened the first.

The handwriting was delicate.

He recognized it instantly from an old birthday card he had kept since childhood.

“My God.”

Mae held his elbow.

Caleb read.

Jacob says Horace came again.

The crowd became still.

He wants the south pasture. Jacob refused.

Second letter.

I saw Jed Hale speaking with Horace behind the hotel.

Third.

Caleb stopped.

His face drained of color.

Mae whispered, “What?”

He handed her the letter.

She read silently.

Then looked up.

“Caleb…”

“What does it say?” someone shouted.

Mae couldn’t speak.

Caleb took it back.

His voice broke as he read aloud.