PART 3 — THE SHERIFF WHO HAD ALREADY BEEN BOUGHT

The men rode away, but Holt Brennan did not relax.

He stood beside the trail for several seconds, watching the eastern ridge where the last of their horses had disappeared. Then he turned toward Tabitha.

“How much did your husband tell you about Crispin Ford?”

“Almost nothing.”

“Did he ever mention a man named Silas Wren?”

Tabitha shook her head.

Holt’s expression changed.

It was the first time she had seen anything close to fear in his face.

“Then your husband was keeping more secrets than you knew.”

The words unsettled her more than the four riders had.

“Edmund was an honest man.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t.”

Holt walked to the cart and checked the towline. He тιԍнтened one knot, then examined the road ahead.

“Honest men sometimes find themselves standing between powerful men and something those powerful men would kill to keep.”

Tabitha’s hand moved instinctively toward the ledger hidden beneath her coat.

“Is that what this is about?”

“I believe so.”

“What did Edmund discover?”

Holt looked at her.

“I don’t know. But Ford doesn’t send four men into the wilderness to retrieve ordinary survey records.”

He began walking again.

For the next hour, Tabitha watched the forest pᴀss around them. Every distant hoofbeat made her stomach тιԍнтen. She kept thinking about Edmund’s final days, the fever that had consumed him, and the strange urgency with which he had entrusted her with the ledger.

There had been something else.

A sentence he had whispered the night before he died.

If anything happens to me, don’t let them change the boundaries.

At the time, she had ᴀssumed he meant a disputed parcel of land.

Now she wasn’t so certain.

By the time Dunmore Crossing appeared below the ridge, the sun had nearly vanished.

The settlement consisted of a general store, a blacksmith, a church, a livery, and a sheriff’s office with a crooked sign hanging above the door.

Holt stopped at the edge of town.

“Where are you going?” Tabitha asked.

“To find out whether the sheriff is still the sheriff.”

She frowned.

“What does that mean?”

“It means you should stay with Mrs. Vickers until I come back.”

“I didn’t travel nine miles to be told where to stay.”

For the first time, Holt looked directly amused.

“Then come along. But if someone asks about the ledger, you haven’t got one.”

They reached Mrs. Vickers’s boarding house just as a lantern was being lit in the front window.

The woman who opened the door was in her late fifties, with silver hair gathered into a тιԍнт bun and eyes that seemed capable of detecting a lie before it had been spoken.

“Tabitha Gorse?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Mrs. Vickers looked at her swollen belly, then at the cart behind her.

“Good heavens. You’ve come all this way alone?”

“Not entirely.”

Her gaze shifted to Holt.

“Mr. Brennan.”

He tipped his hat.

“You know him?” Tabitha asked.

“I know of him. He once carried a man with a broken leg twenty miles through a snowstorm because the man’s horse had wandered off.”

Mrs. Vickers stepped aside.

“Come in, child. Whatever trouble you’ve brought with you, we’ll discuss it after you’ve eaten.”

For the first time in forty days, Tabitha entered a house where she wasn’t expected to prove she deserved a place.

She was given a warm room, a clean bed, and a supper of potatoes, stew, and bread.

She ate slowly, trying not to cry.

Holt stood near the front window, watching the street.

When Mrs. Vickers placed a second bowl before him, he looked at it.

“I didn’t ask for supper.”

“No,” the woman replied. “But you look like a man who forgets to eat whenever trouble comes knocking.”

He accepted the bowl.

Tabitha almost smiled.

Then the church bell rang.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Mrs. Vickers froze.

“That’s not the hour,” she whispered.

Holt set down his spoon.

“What does it mean?”

The older woman looked toward the sheriff’s office.

“It means Sheriff Monroe has called an emergency town meeting.”

“Why?”

She swallowed.

“Because someone has been murdered.”

Tabitha felt the blood drain from her face.

“Who?”

Mrs. Vickers looked at Holt.

“Silas Wren.”

The name he’d mentioned on the trail.

Holt was already reaching for his coat.

“Stay here,” he said.

Tabitha stood.

“No.”

He looked at her.

“Mrs. Gorse—”

“If Silas Wren had anything to do with my husband’s death, I have a right to know.”

Holt studied her for a long moment.

Then he nodded.

“Stay close.”

They reached the sheriff’s office to find half the settlement gathered outside.

A man stood on the steps, his face pale beneath the brim of his hat.

Sheriff Monroe.

He looked at Holt, then at Tabitha.

“Mrs. Gorse,” he said. “I was expecting you.”

The words struck her like a blow.

“How did you know I was coming?”

The sheriff didn’t answer.

Instead, he looked over her shoulder.

“Mr. Brennan, I suggest you leave town before this becomes unpleasant.”

Holt’s hand тιԍнтened around the edge of his coat.

“Unpleasant for whom?”

The sheriff’s eyes moved toward the crowd.

“Everyone.”

A moment later, two deputies emerged from the office.

Between them, they carried a wooden box.

Tabitha recognized it immediately.

It had belonged to Edmund.

She had watched him use it to store his surveying instruments for years.

But now it was covered in mud.

And the brᴀss lock had been broken.

Sheriff Monroe stepped forward.

“Mrs. Gorse, your husband was involved in a serious criminal investigation.”

Tabitha stared at the box.

“That’s impossible.”

“Perhaps,” Monroe said. “But we found something inside it that changes everything.”

He opened the lid.

There were no surveying instruments.

There was no paperwork.

Only a folded piece of paper bearing Edmund’s unmistakable handwriting.

Tabitha reached for it.

The sheriff pulled it away.

“Before you read this, I need to ask you one question.”

His voice dropped.

“Did your husband ever tell you that he had a second family?”

The entire street seemed to go silent.

And Holt Brennan, standing beside her, suddenly looked as though he knew the answer.