But it was enough.

“Yes,” he said quietly.

“A tragedy.”

Then Faun screamed.

A gunshot exploded inside the cabin.

Maylin dropped.

Gideon’s men reached for their weapons.

Silas appeared in the doorway behind her.

“Federal marshal! Hands where I can see them!”

Chaos erupted.

One of Gideon’s men fired.

Silas returned two shots.

The man spun into the snow.

The second rushed toward the side of the cabin.

Maylin scrambled inside.

“Girls!”

Shaw was dragging Faun beneath the table.

The first gunshot had come through the bedroom window.

“Stay down!”

Outside, Gideon shouted.

“You stupid fool, Reed! You should’ve stayed dead!”

Silas fired again.

Then silence.

A shadow moved beside the window.

Maylin saw the barrel of a rifle.

She grabbed the fireplace shovel and swung it through the glass.

A man cried out.

Silas tackled him into the snow.

Maylin turned.

The front door burst open.

Gideon Pike stood there.

Gun raised.

“Enough.”

Silas froze outside.

Gideon stepped behind Maylin and pressed the revolver against her ribs.

Shaw sobbed.

Faun clutched the red doll.

Gideon looked around the cabin.

“All this trouble over a book.”

Maylin breathed carefully.

“I don’t have it.”

“I know Thomas gave it to you.”

“He didn’t.”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

Gideon’s face twisted.

“You expect me to believe your husband sacrificed himself to save evidence and never told his wife where he put it?”

Maylin looked toward Silas.

Something bothered her.

Sacrificed himself.

Not died.

Sacrificed.

“What happened to Thomas?” she whispered.

Silas looked sick.

Gideon smiled.

“Oh.”

Understanding gleamed in his eyes.

“He didn’t tell you that part?”

Maylin’s heart stopped.

“What part?”

Silas said, “Gideon.”

“What part?”

Gideon leaned close to Maylin.

“Your husband wasn’t inside the mine when it collapsed.”

Maylin stared at him.

Silas closed his eyes.

“He was outside.”

“No.”

“He could’ve run.”

“No.”

“But sixty-two miners were still underground.”

Maylin began shaking.

Gideon continued almost cheerfully.

“Thomas discovered the explosives. He couldn’t remove them. Couldn’t warn everyone in time. So he changed the blast line.”

Silas spoke quietly.

“He diverted the charge.”

Maylin looked at him.

“To where?”

Silas’s voice broke.

“The support tunnel.”

She understood.

Thomas had destroyed the tunnel that led toward him.

Instead of the one beneath sixty-two men.

Her husband had chosen where the explosion would go.

“He saved them,” Silas whispered.

Maylin’s eyes filled.

“Sixty-two men walked out because of him.”

“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

“Pike owned the doctor, the sheriff, the newspaper. He turned it into an accident.”

Gideon pressed the gun harder against her.

“And now I need the ledger.”

Maylin wept silently.

Not from fear.

From rage.

“You buried him as a careless miner.”

“It was convenient.”

“You let my daughters believe their father died for nothing.”

“Where is the book?”

Maylin looked at the Christmas presents scattered across the room.

The wooden horse.

The doll.

The ribbons.

Something struck her.

Thomas’s letter.

Tell Shaw I finished the horse.

Tell Faun I remembered the red ribbon.

Why those details?

Why put them in a letter written while being hunted?

Maylin’s gaze shifted.

The blue wooden horse rested beside Shaw.