Thomas saw uncertainty.

“You’ve lost, Samuel.”

Eleanor spoke behind him.

“No.”

Everyone turned.

She stood beside the metal box.

Her expression had changed.

The frightened bride Samuel had met at the station seemed suddenly very far away.

Eleanor reached into her dress pocket.

She removed a small folded receipt.

Thomas frowned.

“What is that?”

“A postal registry.”

His face changed.

Eleanor unfolded it.

“When I left Missouri, I stopped in St.

Louis.”

Samuel stared.

She had never mentioned St.

Louis.

“I stayed two days.”

“What did you do?”

“I copied every document in the trunk.”

Thomas’s smile disappeared.

Eleanor looked directly at him.

“I sent one set to the federal land office in Washington.”

Silence.

“A second to the United States Attorney in Topeka.”

Thomas went pale.

Samuel stared at Eleanor.

She continued.

“And before our wedding, I sent a third letter.”

“To whom?”

Samuel asked.

“A federal marshal.”

Thomas pulled against his ropes.

“You lying little—”

“He’s already coming.”

Eleanor’s voice did not rise.

That made it stronger.

“I told him exactly where the original proof could be found.”

Thomas stopped moving.

Samuel suddenly understood.

The trunk had never been the only evidence.

It had been bait.

And so had the ranch.

Eleanor had not fled blindly across two states.

She had constructed a trap.

Samuel stared at her.

“You knew Thomas might come?”

“I knew whoever killed Rebecca would come.”

“You didn’t know it was him.”

“No.”

She looked toward the bloodied man beneath the cottonwood.

“But I knew the murderer had stayed close to you.”

Samuel’s chest tightened.

“How?”

Eleanor pointed to Rebecca’s journal.

“The missing page wasn’t missing when my mother first received it.”

Thomas went absolutely still.

Eleanor reached beneath the lining of her carpetbag.

From a hidden seam, she removed one folded sheet of paper.

The torn edges matched the journal perfectly.

Samuel could barely speak.

“You had it?”

“My mother hid it separately.”

Eleanor handed it to him.

Rebecca’s handwriting covered the page.

Samuel read.

Thomas knows.

His vision blurred.

I made the mistake of believing friendship was the same as goodness.

Samuel closed his eyes.

Below those words Rebecca had written:

If he discovers I told Grace and Walter, he will come after them too.

Thomas said nothing now.

There was nothing left to say.

But Eleanor was not finished.

“My mother’s letter told me to find Samuel because he was innocent.”

Her eyes met his.

“She also told me something else.”

Samuel unfolded Grace’s letter.

Eleanor pointed to a faint line written vertically along the margin.

Samuel had missed it.

He read the words.

Do not tell Samuel everything until you know Thomas Bell is no longer standing beside him.

Samuel looked toward Thomas.

Ten years.

Thomas had lived three miles away for ten years.

He had shared Samuel’s table.

Borrowed his tools.

Attended Christmas supper.

Helped repair the roof.

And every time Samuel spoke of Rebecca, Thomas had listened while knowing exactly how she died.

Samuel felt suddenly sick.

Far across the prairie came another sound.

Hooves.

Many of them.

Thomas heard them too.

His face drained completely.

Riders appeared on the western ridge.

At their head was a man wearing the dark coat and silver star of a United States deputy marshal.