If that failed, Father said there were easier ways.”
I looked at Gideon.
His face remained controlled as he read my written translation.
Merrick continued.
“Vane wanted the spring.
Father wanted the ranch.
But there was something else.”
“What?”
“He kept talking about the old gate.
Said the mine accident had been the beginning of everything, and once Gideon was gone, nobody would ever question it again.”
I stared at my brother.
“Did Father know the explosion was deliberate?”
Merrick lowered his head.
“He knew more than Vane wanted him to know.”
I took out the little red mitten.
Vane had dropped it during the struggle, and I had retrieved it before leaving the chamber.
Merrick stared at it.
“Do you remember Mother keeping this?”
I asked.
He nodded.
“She used to hide it in her sewing chest.
I asked her about it once.”
“What did she say?”
His eyes filled.
“She said I owed my life to someone I had never thanked.”
A strange pressure rose behind my ribs.
“Did she tell you who?”
“No.”
He looked toward Gideon.
“Not then.”
I pressed the mitten into Merrick’s hands.
His fingers closed around it.
For the first time since we were children, my brother began crying without asking anything from me.
I let him cry.
But I did not forgive him.
Not yet.
Some acts required more than regret.
Afterward, Gideon and I visited the abandoned Ashford house.
The marshal had posted a deputy outside while the authorities searched for Silas.
I wanted to find the missing page.
My father had always kept his important papers inside a locked desk in the bedroom.
The drawer was empty.
So was the old traveling trunk beneath his bed.
But when I searched the closet, I noticed that one floorboard was newer than the others.
I remembered my mother complaining about that board years earlier.
She had said my father insisted on repairing it himself.
I found a hammer and lifted it.
Underneath lay a narrow tin box.
Inside were several bank receipts, a bundle of letters, and a folded document bearing my mother’s handwriting.
My hands trembled.
It was the missing page.
I sat on the floor and unfolded it.
The handwriting was smaller than in the earlier statement.
Several words had been crossed out.
My mother had apparently struggled to record what she knew.
Then I read the first sentence.
The order to destroy the lower drainage records did not come from Harlan Vane.
