“You think papers frighten me? I own the bank.
I financed the sheriff’s campaign.
Half the merchants in this town owe me money.”
“Then half the town will be interested in your second ledger,” Lydia said.
She had seen it inside his satchel when he visited the cabin: a narrow black book tucked beneath the official one.
At the time, she had assumed it was a private account register.
Now she understood why he had guarded it so carefully.
Garrett watched her.
“What second ledger?”
Too quickly.
Elias noticed it too.
“The one you carried here yesterday,” Lydia said.
“The one with a brass corner and a broken strap.”
Garrett’s hand drifted toward his coat.
The mill foreman stepped between him and the door.
For several seconds, no one moved.
Then hoofbeats sounded outside.
A deputy entered without knocking.
“Mr.
Garrett, there’s been trouble at the bank.
Someone broke a rear window.”
Garrett spun toward him.
“The vault?”
“Still locked.
But your office was searched.”
Panic finally stripped the polish from Garrett’s face.
He pushed past the deputy and ran for his horse.
Elias started after him, but Lydia caught his sleeve.
“Let him go.”
“He may destroy the ledger.”
“No,” she said.
“He is going to show us where he hid it.”
They followed at a distance.
Garrett rode past the bank.
He continued through town, crossed the frozen creek, and climbed toward an abandoned chapel on the eastern hill.
By then, the sheriff and two deputies had joined Elias, having read Reed’s evidence and realized how badly Garrett had compromised them.
Garrett dismounted behind the chapel and pried loose a stone from the foundation.
He reached into the hollow.
The sheriff’s voice stopped him.
“Set the book on the ground, Samuel.”
Garrett turned with the black ledger pressed to his chest.
“You work for me,” he said.
The sheriff looked tired.
“That is the problem.”
Garrett backed toward the cliff edge.
Below him, the creek cut through a narrow gorge.
One step farther and he could throw the ledger into the current.
“Every name in this book belongs to someone who begged me for help,” he said.
“Farmers.
Widows.
Storekeepers.
Even your brother, Sheriff.
You put me on trial, and I take half this town with me.”
Lydia stepped out from behind the chapel.
“No.
