Chapter 2 - The Man Who Remembered Annie
Thomas crossed Main Street before Clara could stop him.
The stranger was already gone.
Only a set of muddy footprints remained near the hitching post.
Thomas followed them to the alley behind the bank.
They ended beside a wagon track where the ground had been swept clean.
“He wanted us to see him,” Clara said when Thomas returned.
Thomas locked the shop door and pulled the shades.
Annie Rose was sent upstairs with a biscuit and strict instructions not to investigate anything.
She promised with the solemn expression she used just before disobeying.
Thomas opened the remaining letters.
The second described a debt Annie had discovered in her father’s papers.
The third mentioned a deed to a section of grazing land along South Creek.
The fourth said Silas Vale had threatened her after she refused to sign something.
The fifth contained only four words.
He knows about James.
Thomas stopped reading.
James had been the name chosen for the baby who died with Annie.
Clara took his hand.
“What could Silas have known?”
Thomas stared at the letter.
“I don’t know.”
A knock sounded at the locked door.
Three slow taps.
Then two faster ones.
Thomas moved Clara behind him and opened the door only a few inches.
The man in the black coat stood outside.
Up close, he appeared to be in his late sixties, with pale eyes and a scar beneath his jaw.
“My name is Gideon Vale,” he said.
Thomas’s hand tightened on the door.
“Silas was my brother.”
“Was?”
“He died last winter.”
Gideon looked toward the covered windows.
“But before he died, he told me Annie Hail had hidden proof that could ruin our family.”
Clara stepped into view.
“Why were the letters beneath my floor?”
Gideon’s expression changed when he saw her.
“You look like your father.”
Clara felt the room tilt.
“You knew him?”
“He was the one who hid them.”
Thomas opened the door wider.
Gideon entered but refused the chair Clara offered.
He said Silas had controlled land records throughout the county for twenty years.
He had forged deeds, bought judges, and taken ranches from widows who could not fight back.
Annie discovered the scheme because her father’s land had been targeted.
“She wrote those letters to Thomas,” Gideon said.
“But your father intercepted them to keep Silas from finding them.”
Clara’s anger rose.
“My father let Thomas believe Annie died without warning him.”
“He believed silence would keep Thomas alive.”
Gideon reached into his coat.
Thomas caught his wrist.
Slowly, Gideon removed a small brass key.
“Silas never found the ledger,” he said.
“But someone else is looking now.”
A crash came from upstairs.
Annie Rose screamed.
Thomas ran toward the stairs.
When he reached the landing, the window was open.
May you like
His daughter was gone.
