PART 3 — THE SECRET HIDDEN BENEATH THE FLOORBOARDS

Thomas reached for his rifle, but Elizabeth caught his wrist.

She pointed toward the kitchen.

Then she knelt and pressed her palm against a loose floorboard near the pantry.

Thomas stared.

“What is it?”

She pulled the board aside.

Beneath it lay a small, rusted tin box.

Thomas had lived in the house for nearly fifteen years and had never known it existed.

Elizabeth opened it.

Inside was a yellowed pH๏τograph, a folded letter, and a silver pocket watch.

Thomas picked up the pH๏τograph.

It showed his father standing beside a younger man.

The younger man wore a deputy’s badge.

Thomas recognized him immediately.

Harlan Pike.

But the pH๏τograph had been taken twenty years earlier.

Before Harlan became an auctioneer.

Before he claimed to have arrived in Redemption from Colorado.

And before Mary disappeared.

Thomas unfolded the letter.

The handwriting belonged to his father.

If Mary ever returns, tell her the truth.

Her disappearance was never an accident.

The men who took her were searching for something I buried beneath the old north barn.

Thomas read the sentence twice.

Then he looked at Elizabeth.

“Did you know about this?”

She nodded.

She pointed toward the north barn.

Then she whispered:

“Father.”

Thomas felt his stomach тιԍнтen.

“My father?”

Elizabeth nodded.

She pressed the silver watch into his hand.

Thomas recognized it.

It had belonged to his father, Samuel Blackwell.

But Samuel had supposedly died of pneumonia fourteen years earlier.

“Where did you get this?”

Elizabeth pointed to the barn again.

Thomas folded the letter.

“Stay here.”

This time, she shook her head.

She stood beside him.

Her expression was no longer frightened.

It was determined.

Thomas understood that keeping her locked inside would only remind her of the years when other people had controlled every movement she made.

“All right,” he said. “But stay close.”

Outside, Harlan Pike dismounted.

His smile was almost friendly.

“Morning, Blackwell.”

Thomas stepped onto the porch.

“Pike.”

“I’ve come to collect something.”

“You’ve already collected three dollars.”

Harlan chuckled.

“You think this is amusing?”

“Not particularly.”

Harlan glanced toward the doorway.

“Where is she?”

Thomas said nothing.

“Listen carefully. That woman has been under my care for three years. She’s unstable, confused, and incapable of looking after herself.”

“Then why were her wrists tied?”

Harlan’s smile disappeared.

“Because she runs.”

“Perhaps she had a reason.”

Harlan stepped closer.

“I’m giving you one chance to return her.”

Thomas stood his ground.

“She’s not property.”

One of the men behind Harlan shifted uneasily.

Harlan turned toward him.

“Go around the back.”

Thomas’s hand тιԍнтened.

But before anyone could move, Elizabeth stepped onto the porch.

Harlan stared at her.

For the first time, the confident auctioneer looked genuinely frightened.

“Elizabeth,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

He tried again.

“Mary.”

Thomas turned sharply.

Harlan had just confirmed everything.

“You knew who she was.”

Harlan looked at Thomas.

“She’s been confused for years. Don’t believe everything she tells you.”

Elizabeth reached into her coat and produced the silver pocket watch.

Harlan’s face changed.

“Where did you get that?”

She held it up.

Then she pointed toward the north barn.

Harlan took a step backward.

Thomas noticed.

And suddenly the pieces began falling into place.

The missing girl.

The hidden box.

The pH๏τograph.

His father’s letter.

Harlan hadn’t come to collect Elizabeth.

He had come because she remembered something.

Something buried on the ranch.

Thomas waited until Harlan and his men had ridden away.

Then he turned toward Elizabeth.

“Tell me what happened.”

She looked down at her hands.

For a moment, he thought she wouldn’t try.

But then she reached for a piece of charcoal from the fireplace.

She found an old sheet of paper and began drawing.

First, a little girl.

Then a man wearing a badge.

Then a wagon.

Then a house with a red roof.

Finally, she drew a small wooden chest.

Thomas watched silently.

Elizabeth pointed to the badge.

“Harlan?”

She nodded.

Then she pointed toward the little girl.

Herself.

And finally, she drew another man.

Thomas recognized the shape of his father’s hat.

“Father?”

Elizabeth nodded.

She tapped the drawing of the chest.

Then she wrote three words.

HE SAVED ME.

Thomas sat down.

“What did he save you from?”

Elizabeth closed her eyes.

Her hands began moving again.

She drew a second man wearing a dark coat.

Then she drew a river.

Then a small cross.

Thomas felt sick.

His father had always said Mary was swept away during a flood.

But Elizabeth was showing him something else.

Someone had taken her.

And someone had tried to make the world believe she was ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

Thomas looked toward the north barn.

“We need to find that chest.”

The old barn stood beyond the cottonwood trees.

Its roof had partially collapsed, and weeds covered the lower walls. Thomas hadn’t used it in years.

Elizabeth walked directly to the northern corner.

She knelt beside a wooden support beam and brushed away the dirt.

Then she pointed beneath it.

Thomas fetched a shovel.

After several minutes of digging, the metal blade struck something solid.

A small iron chest.

He cleared away the remaining soil and lifted it out.

The lock was old but intact.

Thomas tried his father’s pocket watch.

There was a tiny key hidden beneath its back cover.

It fitted the chest.

Inside were several documents, a leather-bound diary, and a bundle of letters tied with blue ribbon.

Thomas opened the diary.

The first entry was dated October 1884.

Today I discovered that Harlan Pike has been selling forged land deeds to settlers who cannot defend themselves.

He has been working with a man named Gideon Vale. Together, they are stealing property from families who have no legal representation.

Thomas turned the page.

The next entry mentioned Mary.

Mary saw Harlan carrying the original county map. She heard him threaten a man who refused to sign away his land.

She is frightened, but she knows what she saw.

Thomas stopped reading.

Elizabeth was watching him.

He turned another page.

If anything happens to me, the papers in this chest must be delivered to Judge Whitcomb.

Then came the final entry.

Gideon has discovered that Mary witnessed the exchange. Harlan intends to take her away before she can speak.

I have arranged for her to stay with a family outside Redemption. I will bring her home when it is safe.

Thomas lowered the diary.

His father hadn’t abandoned Mary.

He had tried to protect her.

But the final letter revealed something even more devastating.

It was addressed to Thomas.

My son,

If Mary returns, tell her I never stopped searching.

Tell her I am sorry I couldn’t bring her home sooner.

And tell her the man who took her was not acting alone.

Thomas read the final sentence.

The person who paid Harlan was someone in our own family.

He looked up.

Elizabeth had gone pale.

She pointed toward the farmhouse.

Then she slowly raised three fingers.

Thomas understood.

The third man.

The one Elizabeth had warned him about.

Someone was already inside the ranch when Harlan arrived.

And whoever it was had been watching them since morning.

They returned to the farmhouse.

The front door stood open.

Thomas had locked it before leaving.

Now muddy footprints crossed the kitchen floor.

The tin box was gone.

So was the pH๏τograph of his parents.

Elizabeth grabbed Thomas’s sleeve.

She pointed toward the stairs.

A floorboard creaked overhead.

Thomas looked up.

“Who’s there?”

No answer.

Then a voice came from the bedroom.

“Put down the diary, Thomas.”

Thomas froze.

He knew that voice.

It belonged to the one person he had trusted more than anyone since his father’s death.

His uncle.

Walter Blackwell.

Walter stepped onto the staircase, holding the missing pH๏τograph.

He looked at Elizabeth.

Then he smiled.

“Well, Mary. After twenty years, you’ve finally come home.”

Thomas stared at him.

“Uncle Walter, what have you done?”

Walter glanced at the diary.

“Your father should have burned those papers.”

“Why did you help them take my sister?”

Walter’s expression hardened.

“Because your father made a foolish mistake. He thought honesty was worth more than land.”

Thomas stepped forward.

Walter raised a hand.

“Don’t.”

Then he placed the pH๏τograph on the table.

“There’s something you should know about your sister, Thomas.”

He looked directly at Mary.

“She wasn’t taken because she witnessed a crime.”

He paused.

“She was taken because she was the only person who knew where your father hid the original deed to this ranch.”

Thomas looked at Elizabeth.

Her face had gone completely white.

Walter smiled.

“And now that she’s back, I suppose we’ll finally find it.”

But Mary did something neither man expected.

She reached for Thomas’s hand.

And for the first time in twenty years, she spoke in a clear, steady voice.

“Don’t believe him.”

Walter’s smile vanished.

Mary looked at her brother.

“Your father didn’t hide the deed.”

She pointed toward the fireplace.

“He hid the truth about Walter.”

And beneath the oldest stone in the farmhouse, a secret waited that could destroy the entire Blackwell family.