“And Silas thinks they’re still there?”
“Yes.”
A knock sounded at the office door.
Three sharp blows.
Whitaker froze.
A man’s voice came from the hallway.
“Judge Whitaker? Open up.”
Henry recognized the voice.
Deputy Nathan Pike.
Whitaker’s face drained.
“Don’t answer.”
The knock came again.
“Judge?”
Then another voice.
Smooth.
Cultivated.
Almost pleasant.
“Samuel, I believe you’ve been telling stories about me.”
Clara stopped breathing.
Whitaker whispered, “Silas.”
Chapter Ten: Blood in the Snow
Henry moved Clara behind the heavy desk.
Whitaker opened a narrow cabinet and removed an old revolver.
“Back door,” he whispered.
Henry reached for Clara’s hand.
For one moment, neither moved.
Then she took it.
They slipped through the rear office and into a narrow alley.
Behind them, wood splintered.
The front door had been forced open.
“Run,” Henry said.
They hurried toward the stable.
Clara struggled through the snow, her breath burning in her chest.
Henry did not let go.
At the corner, two men appeared.
One raised a rifle.
Henry shoved Clara behind a wagon.
A shot cracked through the cold air.
Wood exploded beside his head.
Henry drew his revolver and fired into the snow at the men’s feet.
They stumbled backward.
He grabbed Clara and pulled her toward the stable.
A stable boy opened the side gate.
“This way!”
They reached Henry’s wagon.
Then another gunshot rang out.
The stable boy cried out and fell.
Clara screamed.
Henry caught the wounded boy before his head struck the ground.
Blood spread across the lad’s sleeve.
“Inside!” Henry ordered.
They dragged him into the stable.
Clara pressed a folded cloth against the wound.
“Henry, he’s bleeding badly.”
Henry looked toward the alley.
More footsteps.
More voices.
They were trapped.
Then a horse came thundering through the far gate.
A tall woman in a black riding coat sat in the saddle.
Her silver hair streamed beneath her hat.
“Henry Mercer!”
He turned.
The woman stared at him.
Her expression shattered.
“My boy.”
Henry felt the world stop.
He knew that voice.
He had heard it in dreams for twenty years.
“Mother?”
The woman slid from the saddle.
Abigail Mercer.
Alive.
Older.
Harder.
But unmistakably alive.
She seized his face between her hands.
“Oh, Henry.”
He could barely speak.
“Where have you been?”
Her eyes filled.
“Trying to keep you alive.”
A rifle cracked outside.
Abigail turned sharply.
“Questions later. Move!”
She led them through a hidden rear passage into a neighboring warehouse.
An old freight wagon waited there.
Within minutes, they were traveling through a ravine outside town.
The wounded stable boy lay beneath blankets.
Clara held pressure against his arm.
Henry sat across from his mother, staring as though looking away might make her vanish.
At last, he whispered, “Father said you ran away.”
Abigail closed her eyes.
“I know.”
“He said you took Eleanor.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“My little girl was already gone.”
Henry looked down.
Abigail reached for his hand.
“I wanted to come back. God knows I tried.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because Silas had men watching the house. He threatened to kill you if I returned.”
Henry’s jaw trembled.
“And Father?”
“Thomas knew. We agreed that he would raise you, and I would draw Blackthorn’s attention elsewhere.”
Clara stared at her.
“Did you know my mother?”
Abigail turned.
Her expression softened.
“Oh, sweetheart.”
She reached toward Clara.
“Your mother loved you more than life.”
Clara’s eyes filled.
“Is she alive?”
Abigail hesitated.
That hesitation told Clara everything.
“No,” she whispered.
Abigail took her hands.
“Margaret died trying to reach you in Chicago. But before she died, she made me promise something.”
“What?”
“That someday, somehow, you would know you had never been abandoned.”
Clara began sobbing.
Abigail drew her close.
And for the first time in twenty years, Clara allowed herself to cry like a child.
Chapter Eleven: The Buried Chamber
They returned to the Mercer cabin after dark.
Abigail knew a narrow hunter’s trail that avoided the main road.
The wounded stable boy, named Daniel, was left in the care of a trustworthy ranch family along the way.
When they reached the cabin, Henry lit the stove.
Clara sat quietly beside Abigail.
The older woman studied the walls.
“Thomas built this with his own hands.”
Henry nodded.
“He always said it would outlive him.”
Abigail touched the mantel.
“He was a good man.”
Henry’s expression tightened.
“He died believing you’d abandoned him.”
“No,” Abigail whispered. “He died knowing I loved him.”
She reached inside her coat and withdrew a worn envelope.
Henry recognized the handwriting.
His father’s.
“Thomas sent this to me before he passed,” Abigail said. “He made me promise not to return until it was safe.”
Inside was a letter.
Henry read it silently.
Then again.
His father had written about the hidden records.
About Blackthorn.
About the danger.
But the last paragraph was what destroyed him.
Henry will grow into a good man because goodness is stubborn in him. Tell him that love is not weakness. Tell him I was proud of him every day.
Henry lowered the paper.
For a long time, he said nothing.
Clara wanted to reach for him.
But she waited.
Finally, Henry looked up.
“Where are the records?”
Abigail glanced toward the stove.
“Thomas hid them in the only place Silas would never think to search.”
Henry followed her gaze.
“The chimney?”
“Underneath it.”
He stared.
The chimney had been rebuilt three years earlier.
He had repaired the foundation himself.
But he had never disturbed the original stone hearth.
Abigail knelt beside the stove.
“Help me.”
Together, they moved the iron stove aside after allowing it to cool sufficiently.
