Chapter 3
Beatrice appeared in the opening of the quilt curtain, holding Ethan against her shoulder. Her sharp, aristocratic face had lost every trace of its earlier hostility. She looked at Serena, then at the blood pooling under Hollis.
“Your sister?” Beatrice asked quietly.
Serena took a slow breath, keeping her eyes fixed on Elias. “My sister Clara was nineteen. She worked as a governess for Vance’s children after his wife passed. When Clara found the ledgers proving Vance was systematically forging territorial land patents—starving out homesteaders by falsifying water rights—she tried to leave. She brought the documents to the county circuit judge in Helena.”
Serena swallowed hard, the muscles in her neck corded with grief.
“She never reached the stage station. They found her wagon overturned in the canyon. Said her team spooked. But before she left Vance’s house, she mailed the duplicate survey maps and the bank drafts to me in St. Louis. Along with her journal.”
Elias lowered the rifle an inch. “The gold Hollis mentioned?”
“Clara didn't take gold,” Serena said, lifting her chin, meeting Elias’s piercing gray eyes without flinching. “Vance tells the valley I’m a thief because a man can legally hang a thief on sight. He doesn't want the gold. He wants the papers hidden in the false bottom of my carpetbag. The papers that would send him to the federal penitentiary at Deer Lodge for thirty years.”
She stepped toward the door, reaching for her wool cloak hanging from the peg.
“I knew the valley was broad,” she whispered, tears finally gleaming in her eyes. “I thought if I holed up in a place struggling enough, no one would look. I chose Black Juniper because people in town said the Baird ranch was falling apart, that the widower was drowning in work and wouldn't ask questions. I used you, Elias. To survive. To buy time until the spring circuit judge rode through.”
She pulled the heavy cloak around her shoulders.
“Hollis says they're coming. If they find me here, they’ll burn this cabin with the babies inside. I took an anchor from your porch, and I won't let you pay for my sister's grave. Let me have one horse. I’ll lead them south toward the timberline.”
She reached for the latch.
A heavy hand clamped down over hers, pinning the iron handle in place.
Elias stood over her, his broad shoulders blocking the door, his eyes dark and unreadable.