“The ranch.”
Harlan stiffened.
Silas handed him a paper.
“The money Eleanor used to purchase this property was stolen.”
“Stolen from whom?”
“From the Callaway estate, for which I was legal trustee.”
Nora laughed bitterly.
“You stole that money from us.”
“Can you prove it?”
Nora’s laughter stopped.
Silas continued.
“I can prove Eleanor removed funds without authorization.”
The man beside him opened the leather case.
Inside were ledgers.
Receipts.
Court filings.
Silas’s smile widened.
“I have obtained an injunction preventing sale or transfer of the property until ownership is determined.”
Harlan read the paper.
His face went hard.
Silas looked toward the house.
“Of course, we can avoid unpleasantness.”
Nora knew that voice.
The same voice he had used when she was a child.
Soft.
Reasonable.
Poisonous.
“How?”
“Come home.”
Harlan moved forward.
Nora stopped him with one hand.
Silas said, “Renounce any claim Eleanor made. Sign the ranch over to me, and I will allow Mr. Greer and his children twelve months to relocate.”
Nora stared at him.
“You crossed six hundred miles because you are afraid of what Eleanor left behind.”
Something flickered in his face.
There.
Small.
But visible.
Fear.
Nora saw it.
And suddenly she understood.
“This isn’t about the ranch.”
Silas’s smile vanished.
Nora stepped closer.
“What did she take from Missouri besides money?”
Silas said nothing.
“What are you afraid she kept?”
“Nora.”
“What?”
Silas put his gloves back on.
“You were always the slower sister.”
Then he turned and climbed into his carriage.
Nora watched him leave.
Beside her, Harlan said quietly, “What did that mean?”
Nora looked at the dust rising behind the carriage.
“I don’t know.”
But Thomas did.
She saw it in his face.
They confronted him that night.
Thomas stood near the fireplace.
“I found something last spring.”
Nora folded her arms.
“Of course you did.”
“I forgot about it.”
Harlan looked exhausted.
“You have an unusual definition of forgetting.”
Thomas reached behind a loose stone in the hearth.
He removed an envelope.
The paper was brittle.
It was addressed to no one.
Inside was a single line in Eleanor’s handwriting.
The truth was never in the box. It was beneath the table where we ate our first meal.
Everyone looked toward the kitchen.
Rue whispered, “Treasure?”
Cade said, “Don’t be stupid.”
Rue kicked him.
They moved the table.
Nothing.
Nora crouched.
The floorboards were rough pine.
One looked newer.
Harlan fetched a pry bar.
He lifted it.
Beneath was packed earth.
Thomas found a small metal ring.
He pulled.
A shallow wooden compartment opened.
Inside lay an oilcloth bundle.
Nora unwrapped it.
Ledgers.
Letters.
A legal seal.
And a document bearing her father’s signature.
Her hands began shaking.
Silas had not merely stolen their inheritance.
He had forged their father’s final will.
