Caleb entered the cabin and searched it again.

Behind the stove, someone had carved three marks into the timber.

Three vertical lines crossed by a single horizontal cut.

Ruth gasped.

“You know it?”

“That’s Crane’s mark.”

Caleb touched the cuts.

Fresh.

His eyes narrowed.

“Made last night.”

Ruth whispered, “He found us.”

“No.”

Caleb turned.

“He was here before us.”

That frightened him more.

The cabin had belonged to a friend named Ezekiel Ross, an old trapper who had disappeared five years earlier.

Another disappearance everyone had accepted without questions.

Caleb pried up a loose floorboard.

Beneath it lay a metal lockbox.

The key from Pike’s coat fit perfectly.

Ruth stared.

Inside were letters.

Receipts.

Bank drafts.

And photographs.

Caleb lifted the first picture.

Six young women stood in front of the Redstone Flats opera house.

One of them was Annie Mercer.

The second photograph made Caleb sit down.

A girl with dark braids, perhaps eighteen years old.

Sarah Horn.

His sister.

She stood beside Silas Crane.

But she was not restrained.

She was smiling.

Ruth whispered, “Caleb?”

He could barely speak.

“What?”

“You said you knew her.”

“That’s my sister.”

Ruth stepped closer.

Caleb turned the photograph over.

Written on the back:

Sarah Horn, Redstone Office, 1883. Trusted.

Caleb felt sick.

His sister had vanished in 1882.

This picture had been taken a year later.

Alive.

Working for Crane.

Trusted.

Ruth sank into a chair.

“Maybe they forced her.”

Caleb stared at the photograph.

Maybe.

But he knew Sarah’s smile.

It had been real.

They reached Redstone Flats shortly before dusk.

Caleb left Ruth at an abandoned shepherd’s shed outside town.

“You stay here.”

“No.”

“They know your face.”

“And you don’t know the building.”

He looked at her.

She folded her arms.

“I’m coming.”

“You almost died yesterday.”

“And Martha died four years ago.”

The words stopped him.

Ruth stepped closer.

“I ran once. They caught me. I ran again. They caught me again. This time I stole their names because I wanted someone to know those women existed.”

Her chin trembled.

“If I hide now, then I’m still theirs.”

Caleb gave her one of his revolvers.

“Can you shoot?”

Ruth checked the cylinder.

“You’d be surprised what girls learn when men think they’re furniture.”

They entered town separately.

Redstone Flats looked peaceful.

That was the worst part.

Children chased one another beside the church.

A woman swept the boardwalk in front of the bakery.

Two elderly men played checkers.

The opera house rose at the north end of Main Street, three stories of red brick with gold lettering above its doors.

A poster advertised a comic performance for nine o’clock.

Caleb checked into the Redstone Hotel.

The clerk, Mr. Avery, glanced at his name.

“Horn?”

Caleb watched his reaction.

There was one.

Small.

But there.

“You know the name?”

“No, sir.”

The lie was too quick.

Caleb leaned across the counter.

“My sister passed through years ago.”

Avery’s eyes darted toward the street.

“Lot of people passed through.”

“Sarah Horn.”

The clerk’s fingers stopped moving.

Then he smiled.

“Can’t help you.”

Caleb grabbed his wrist.

Avery winced.

“Try.”

“Sheriff!”

Caleb released him before the shout finished.

Sheriff Tobias Vale entered from the dining room.