Chapter 6 - What Happened to Evelyn Harcourt
Clara stared at the message until the words blurred.
Jonas took it from her.
"He wants you angry."
"He murdered my mother."
"We don't know that."
"We know enough."
Jonas held her shoulders.
"Listen to me."
She looked up.
"We don't walk into Caldwell's trap angry."
"Then how?"
"Together."
They prepared carefully.
Cole gathered four deputies.
Ezra knew another entrance to the mine.
Clara insisted on going.
Jonas argued.
She won.
"You married stubborn," she told him.
"Beginning to notice."
They reached the mine after dark.
Jonas and Clara approached openly.
Cole's men circled behind.
Inside, Caldwell waited.
Edwin sat tied to a chair.
Blood marked his temple.
The ledger lay on a table.
Caldwell stood beside it holding a revolver.
He was sixty, silver-haired, polished, and calm.
Nothing about him resembled a murderer.
That made him worse.
"Clara."
She looked at Edwin.
"Are you hurt?"
"I've had better evenings."
Caldwell smiled.
"Family reunions are exhausting."
Jonas stepped forward.
"Let him go."
Caldwell pointed the revolver at him.
"No."
Clara asked, "Did you kill my mother?"
Caldwell's smile faded.
"Evelyn was reckless."
"Did you kill her?"
"She threatened everything we'd built."
Edwin shouted, "Don't."
Caldwell struck him.
Clara flinched.
Jonas didn't move.
Caldwell continued.
"Your mother discovered deeds she had no business reading."
"They were hers."
"Ownership is whatever courts say it is."
"And you bought the courts."
"I invested in sensible outcomes."
Clara felt disgust.
"She wouldn't stay quiet."
"No."
"So you pushed her."
Caldwell looked almost nostalgic.
"She stood at that balcony telling me Thomas would expose everything."
Clara stopped breathing.
"I only intended to frighten her."
Edwin closed his eyes.
Caldwell shrugged.
"She stepped backward."
"You're lying."
"Perhaps."
Jonas saw movement behind Caldwell.
Cole.
Almost in position.
He needed time.
"What about Thomas Whitmore?" Jonas asked.
Caldwell smiled.
"Smarter than his wife."
"You paid him."
"I tried."
"He took the money."
"And spent years gathering evidence against me."
Clara felt pride and grief collide.
"What happened to him?"
Caldwell's expression changed.
Her father had died from pneumonia four years earlier.
Or so she had been told.
"Nothing," Caldwell said.
Too quickly.
Clara understood.
"You killed him too."
Edwin shouted, "Clara, move!"
Caldwell raised the gun.
Jonas lunged.
The shot exploded.
Clara screamed.
Jonas struck Caldwell.
Both men crashed into the table.
The ledger fell.
Edwin kicked it toward Clara.
She grabbed it.
Another shot.
Cole entered.
"Drop it!"
Caldwell grabbed Clara.
His arm locked around her throat.
Gun against her ribs.
Everyone froze.
"Back away."
Jonas's face became terrifyingly calm.
"Let her go."
"You love her."
It wasn't a question.
Jonas realized something.
So did Clara.
He had never said it.
Not once.
Caldwell backed toward the mine entrance.
"Put the ledger down."
Clara looked at Jonas.
His eyes told her no.
She understood.
She dropped the ledger.
Caldwell looked down instinctively.
Clara drove her heel into his foot.
Jonas moved.
Cole fired.
Caldwell's revolver fell.
Within seconds, he was on the ground.
Alive.
Handcuffed.
Finished.
Clara ran to Jonas.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
She touched his face.
He held her.
"I love you."
The words came out before he could stop them.
Clara froze.
Jonas almost looked embarrassed.
"This is a poor time?"
She kissed him.
"No."
Edwin cleared his throat.
"I'm bleeding over here."
Clara laughed through tears.
They freed him.
By sunrise, Caldwell was in custody.
The ledger was safe.
Federal investigators arrived the following afternoon.
The evidence was devastating.
Caldwell's empire began collapsing almost immediately.
But one question remained.
Edwin visited Clara and Jonas before they returned home.
"I owe you something."
He handed Clara a small key.
"Your mother's attorney gave this to me after she died."
Clara stared.
"What does it open?"
"A deposit box in Denver."
"What's inside?"
"I don't know."
"You had sixteen years."
"I promised Thomas I wouldn't open it."
Clara looked at Jonas.
The danger appeared finished.
Caldwell was imprisoned.
The ledger was secured.
Her inheritance was legally hers.
But something about Edwin's expression frightened her.
"Why give it to me now?"
He hesitated.
"Because your father told me to give it to you only after the man responsible for Evelyn's death could no longer reach you."
Clara closed her fingers around the key.
"And what did he put in the box?"
May you like
Edwin looked at her.
"Something he said would change what you believed about your mother."
