PART 3 — The Man Who Came to Collect

I had imagined many things when I crossed the ocean.

A quiet house.

Honest work.

A little garden where I could grow roses without remembering the winter in which everything I loved had burned away.

I had never imagined that my ᴅᴇᴀᴅ father’s name would come knocking on my door.

Callaway motioned for me to stay behind him.

Then he opened it.

A tall man stood on the porch beneath a black umbrella. His coat was immaculate, his boots polished despite the muddy road, and a silver watch chain gleamed against his vest.

He was perhaps fifty, with pale eyes and a thin mouth that seemed permanently displeased.

“Mr. Callaway,” he said pleasantly.

“Mr. Whitmore.”

The stranger glanced past him.

His eyes found me immediately.

“Miss Eleanor.”

The way he said my name made me feel as though I had been summoned before a judge.

“I don’t believe we’ve met,” I said.

“Oh, but I’ve known of you for years.”

He removed his hat.

“Silas Whitmore. Attorney. I represented your father’s estate.”

“My father is ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.”

“Indeed.”

“Then what do you want?”

Whitmore smiled faintly.

“To fulfill an agreement.”

Callaway stepped into the doorway, blocking his view.

“Whatever business you have can wait until morning.”

“Unfortunately, it cannot.”

Whitmore opened a leather case.

Inside was a document bearing a red wax seal.

I recognized the initials pressed into it.

The same initials that had appeared on the few belongings my mother had kept from my father.

E.H.

Edward Hayes.

My father’s name.

Whitmore held the paper toward me.

“Your father left property in Wyoming. A substantial property, Miss Eleanor. Land, livestock, mineral rights, and a house.”

I looked at Callaway.

He stared at the document as if it were a loaded gun.

“Why wasn’t I told?”

“Because the estate has been disputed,” Whitmore replied. “Your father made certain arrangements shortly before his death.”

“What arrangements?”

Whitmore’s smile disappeared.

“He left the controlling interest to a woman whose idenтιтy was concealed.”

The storm seemed to grow louder.

“Who?”

Whitmore’s pale eyes settled on me.

“You.”

My knees weakened.

I caught the table.

For years, I had counted every coin before buying bread. I had crossed an ocean with fourteen dollars and sixty cents in my purse, convinced that my only remaining value lay in the work my hands could do.

And now a stranger was telling me that my father had left me a fortune.

But Callaway wasn’t looking at the paper.

He was looking at Whitmore.

“What do you want in return?” he asked.

Whitmore slowly folded the document.

“Your cooperation.”

“With what?”

“A signature.”

He took another paper from his case.

It was a transfer deed.

My name was already written at the bottom.

All I had to do was sign.

“What does this transfer?” I asked.

“The estate.”

“To whom?”

Whitmore’s expression softened into something almost kind.

“To the proper administrator.”

Callaway gave a short, bitter laugh.

“Don’t sign it.”

Whitmore’s eyes narrowed.

“This is not your concern, Thomas.”

“It became my concern the day you started threatening her.”

“I haven’t threatened anyone.”

“You rode twenty miles through a thunderstorm to get her signature.”

Whitmore turned to me.

“Miss Eleanor, I advise you to be sensible. Your father was a complicated man. His affairs are not something a young woman should attempt to untangle alone.”

I looked at the transfer deed.

Then at the man who had come to my door.

“Leave.”

He blinked.

“Pardon?”

“You heard me.”

For the first time, Whitmore seemed genuinely surprised.

He tucked the papers away.

“Very well.”

He placed his hat on his head.

“But before I go, perhaps Mr. Callaway should tell you what happened to the last person who refused to sign.”

He looked directly at Thomas.

Then he smiled.

“Good night, Miss Hayes.”

The buggy wheels faded into the storm.

I turned on Callaway.

“What was that?”

He didn’t answer.

“What happened to the last person?”

He walked to the fireplace and stared into the flames.

“Your father had a business partner.”

“Who?”

“Samuel Whitmore. Silas’s older brother.”

“And?”

“He died on this ranch.”

I remembered Callaway’s warning.

The locked room.

The man who had died.

“Who killed him?”

Callaway’s shoulders sagged.

“I was accused.”

The room became unbearably quiet.

I watched the man who had given me shelter, who had promised me wages, who had never once raised his voice against me.

“Did you do it?”

He turned.

“No.”

His answer came without hesitation.

But before I could ask another question, a sharp crack sounded from the barn.

Callaway grabbed his rifle.

“Stay here.”

This time, I followed him.

Rain lashed my face as we crossed the yard.

The barn door stood open.

Inside, the horses stamped nervously.

And on the floor beside the feed bins lay a broken lantern.

Someone had been here.

Callaway crouched near a muddy footprint.

Then he looked toward the loft.

A shadow moved above us.

“Who’s there?” he shouted.

A figure scrambled across the rafters.

Callaway raised his rifle.

But I saw something first.

A strip of blue cloth caught on a nail.

I knew that fabric.

I had seen it once before.

Years ago, in a room in Boston, where my mother sat beside a dying fire and begged me never to trust a man wearing a silver watch.

I reached for the cloth.

There was a small embroidered mark on its edge.

Three letters.

E.H.

My father’s initials.

Beneath them, sтιтched in almost invisible thread, were two words.

Still alive.

My breath caught.

“Thomas.”

He turned toward me.

I held up the cloth.

He stared at it.

And for the first time since I had met him, the cowboy looked utterly lost.

“Where did you get that?” he whispered.

“Someone dropped it.”

He took the cloth from my hand.

His fingers began to tremble.

“Eleanor,” he said, his voice barely audible. “There’s something I’ve been praying you would never discover.”

“What?”

He looked toward the loft.

Then back at me.

“Your father didn’t die in Wyoming.”

A board creaked overhead.

The shadow disappeared.

Callaway lowered his rifle.

“He came here three nights ago.”

I stared at him.

Three nights.

Before I arrived.

Before I had stepped off the train.

Before I had ever seen this ranch.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because he made me swear.”

“Swear what?”

Callaway looked toward the open barn door.

“To keep you safe from him.”

A sudden gust blew the lantern flame sideways.

And somewhere beyond the pasture, a horse whinnied.

Someone was riding away.

Callaway ran outside.

I followed him to the fence.

Far across the dark prairie, a rider vanished into the rain.

But the rider wasn’t alone.

A second horse followed.

And on its saddle hung a woman’s red scarf.

The same shade of wine-red I had worn the night I fled England.

I touched my hair instinctively.

Then I saw the small envelope lying beneath the fence post.

My name was written across it.

Inside was a single sentence.

Eleanor, if Thomas has told you I am ᴅᴇᴀᴅ, do not believe him.

Below it was a signature.

Your father, Edward Hayes.

And beneath that, in handwriting I recognized from my mother’s letters, was one final line.

Ask him what happened to Rose.

END OF PART 3

PART 4 — The Secret of the Little Girl in the Grave

Who was Rose really?

Why had Eleanor’s father returned after all those years?

And why did a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ child’s name suddenly connect the cowboy, the missing inheritance, and the secret behind the locked door?

But the most terrifying discovery was still waiting inside that farmhouse.

Because when Eleanor finally found the courage to turn the key in the brᴀss lock, she would discover that Callaway had not been keeping a ᴅᴇᴀᴅ man’s belongings inside.

He had been keeping proof that someone in her family had lied about everything.