Chapter 2 - Beneath Her Father's Floor
Elias drew his revolver.
Catherine froze beside the open passage.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yes."
The whisper came again.
"Catherine."
This time she recognized something worse than the voice.
It knew her.
Elias stepped in front of her.
"Stay here."
"No."
"Catherine."
"This is my house."
"And somebody's hiding under it."
"Which is exactly why I'm coming."
Even frightened, she was stubborn.
Elias almost admired it.
Almost.
He lit a lantern.
The staircase descended farther than either expected.
At the bottom was a narrow passage cut through stone beneath the cabin.
Catherine had lived there twenty-seven years.
She had never known it existed.
The tunnel ended at a small room.
Nobody was inside.
Catherine stared.
"I heard someone."
"So did I."
On a wooden desk sat an old phonograph mechanism connected to a trip wire.
Elias examined it.
"Recording device."
Catherine's fear became confusion.
"Papa?"
A cylinder had been designed to play when the door opened.
The whisper hadn't been a living person.
It had been her father's voice.
Catherine's knees weakened.
Elias caught her elbow.
She stared at the machine.
Her father had been dead three years.
Yet somehow he had just spoken her name.
Beside the phonograph lay a metal box.
The brass key opened it.
Inside were documents.
Dozens.
Land surveys.
Bank receipts.
Letters.
And a ledger.
Catherine opened it.
Samuel's name appeared first.
Then Caleb's.
Payments.
Debts.
Her father had spent years paying what they owed.
Catherine felt sick.
"He didn't steal from them."
"No," Elias said.
"He saved them."
But another document was underneath.
A mining survey.
Elias read it twice.
"What?"
He handed it to her.
Silver.
A substantial deposit had been discovered beneath the north ridge sixteen years earlier.
The land could be worth a fortune.
Catherine finally understood.
Her brothers weren't fighting over a cabin.
They wanted the mineral rights.
A letter rested beneath the survey.
Her name was written across the front.
Catherine opened it.
Cat,
If you're reading this, your brothers have discovered the ridge.
I pray they haven't.
I hid the survey because money changes men who already believe the world owes them something.
Samuel knows part of the truth.
Caleb knows less.
Neither knows what I did after the survey.
Catherine stopped.
"What did he do?"
Elias pointed to another envelope.
Before she could open it, a gunshot exploded upstairs.
They both looked toward the staircase.
Another shot.
Then boots crossed the cabin floor.
Elias extinguished the lantern.
"Behind me."
A man's voice called from above.
Not Samuel.
Not Caleb.
"Catherine Miller!"
Elias raised his revolver.
The stranger descended one step.
Then another.
May you like
And said the one sentence Catherine never expected to hear.
"I'm here about your father's murder."
