Chapter 6 - The Last Page
Claire stared at the signature.
Ethan did not move.
Samuel stood between them.
Silas laughed from the ground.
“Families are complicated.”
Marshal Cole closed the ledger.
“Vane, be quiet.”
Claire looked at Ethan.
“Did your father know Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ever mention him?”
“No.”
“Did he pay Vane?”
“I don't know.”
Silas smiled.
“Ask him about the medicine.”
Ethan lunged.
Cole stopped him.
“Calloway.”
Silas was taken away.
Bell survived his wound and was arrested.
But the signature remained.
That night Claire stayed at Margaret's home.
Ethan slept in the barn.
Not because Claire asked him to.
Because he could not bear to sit near her while she wondered whether his father had helped kill Thomas.
Morning brought a discovery.
Samuel made it.
He had been reading the ledger.
“Mom.”
Claire sat beside him.
“What?”
“The numbers.”
“What about them?”
“This one is backwards.”
She looked.
The payment supposedly authorized by Jacob had a transaction number.
Earlier payments followed sequential numbers.
The final entry had been reversed.
A code.
Claire remembered Thomas doing that when marking disputed accounts.
“This isn't approval.”
She ran to find Ethan.
He was saddling a horse.
“Where are you going?”
“Away for a while.”
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Claire.”
“Your father didn't authorize Thomas’s death.”
“How do you know?”
She showed him.
“Thomas marked fraudulent transactions backward.”
Ethan stared.
Hope returned cautiously.
They took the ledger to Marshal Cole.
Bell broke first.
Faced with the records, the federal charges and the possibility of hanging for murder, he confessed.
Silas had poisoned Jacob slowly through medicine supplied by a bribed doctor.
Rebecca discovered the scheme.
Silas ordered the cabin burned.
Thomas discovered both crimes.
Bell confronted him on the railway bridge.
Thomas refused to surrender the evidence.
Bell pushed him.
Claire listened without crying.
Some grief was too deep for tears.
Bell then revealed something else.
Thomas had created a trust.
The mineral rights beneath Calloway land had never legally transferred.
And Thomas had placed his own compensation from Vane into a protected account intended for both families if the truth ever emerged.
It was the Harper claim.
Silas wanted Claire to surrender it because doing so would destroy her legal standing as Thomas's heir.
For three years she had been poor while money legally belonging to her children sat beyond Vane's reach.
The irony almost made her laugh.
Almost.
Silas was charged with conspiracy, fraud, arson and murder.
Bell agreed to testify.
The doctor was arrested.
The Calloway deed was restored.
Weeks passed.
Claire could have left.
She now had money.
Enough for a home.
Enough for Noah.
Enough for Samuel.
She packed anyway.
Ethan found her folding the blue dress.
“You're leaving.”
Claire looked at him.
“I don't know.”
“You don't have to stay now.”
“That isn't why I'm packing.”
“Then why?”
“Because I don't know if you still need me.”
Ethan stared.
Claire immediately regretted the words.
They sounded pathetic.
She turned away.
“I mean, the arrangement was made because we were desperate.”
“Yes.”
“We aren't anymore.”
“No.”
“So perhaps we should decide again.”
Ethan walked closer.
“Fine.”
Claire looked up.
“Fine?”
“Decide.”
“Now?”
“Why not?”
“Because this isn't choosing a horse.”
“No.”
His eyes held hers.
“It matters more.”
Claire’s heart began beating harder.
Ethan removed his hat.
“I needed a mother for my boys.”
She swallowed.
“And I needed a father for Samuel.”
“I don't need that anymore.”
Claire went still.
Then Ethan continued.
“I want you.”
Her breath caught.
“Not because you cook.”
He stepped closer.
“Not because my boys love you.”
Closer.
“Not because I owe you.”
Claire's eyes filled.
“Then why?”
“Because when something happens, you're the first person I want to tell.”
She smiled through tears.
“That isn't very romantic.”
“I'm new at this.”
“You were married.”
“I was better at it then.”
Claire laughed.
Ethan smiled.
It transformed him.
Then Samuel burst through the door.
“Ethan!”
They separated.
“What?”
Samuel was pale.
“A man came from town.”
Ethan reached instinctively for his gun.
“Who?”
“A lawyer.”
Claire frowned.
“What does he want?”
Samuel held out an envelope.
“He said Silas Vane asked for Mom.”
Claire took it.
The envelope was sealed.
Inside was a single sheet.
One sentence.
May you like
COME TO THE COURTHOUSE TOMORROW IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHO REALLY ORDERED THOMAS HARPER’S DEATH.
There was no signature.
