Three.
One.
Seven.
Four.
The gate opened.
Beyond it was a chamber lined with shelves.
Leather books, sealed boxes, rolled surveys, and bundles of letters filled the room. Dust covered everything, but the air was dry.
Elara stared at the hidden archive.
“This could return hundreds of properties.”
“And ruin Cassian.”
“No,” she said. “The truth will ruin him. We are only opening the door.”
They worked quickly.
Gideon selected original surveys bearing official seals. Elara found account books containing both the true debts and the fraudulent versions later presented in court.
Then she stopped.
A narrow ledger lay inside a wooden box.
She opened it and searched the pages.
“Anna Hale,” she whispered.
Gideon crossed the room.
Beside the name was a delivery schedule and a location.
Cypress House stood six miles from Briarwood, hidden near an abandoned cypress mill.
June might be alive.
A sound came from the chapel above them.
Boots crossed the stone floor.
Gideon extinguished the lantern.
Bram Cutter’s voice echoed down the stairs.
“You always were stubborn, Mrs. Wycliffe.”
Elara gripped the ledger.
Cutter descended with two men behind him.
“You should have accepted your husband’s forgiveness,” he said.
“My husband forgives people only after he has buried the evidence.”
Cutter glanced at Gideon.
“And you. Still searching for a sister who abandoned you.”
“She did not abandon me.”
“That is what men tell themselves when the truth is too painful.”
Gideon stood between Cutter and Elara.
“You are not taking her.”
Cutter sighed.
“I was hoping we could avoid unpleasantness.”
“No one needs to be harmed,” Elara said. “The records will be presented to a judge.”
“The judge belongs to Mr. Wycliffe.”
“Not every judge.”
Cutter stepped toward her.
“You are returning to Briarwood.”
A church bell suddenly rang above them.
The chapel had no functioning bell.
The sound came again, louder this time.
Cutter’s men looked toward the stairs.
Amos Reed appeared at the top with Ruth, Hester Vale, and more than twenty residents of Willow Crossing behind them.
Several carried lanterns. Others held tools from their farms and workshops, but no one approached aggressively.
Hester Vale stepped forward.
“I spent half my life protecting the Wycliffe family’s secrets,” she said. “Today I protect the people they stole from.”
Cutter looked at the crowd and understood that he could not remove Elara without witnesses.
“You are making a serious mistake,” he warned them.
Ruth folded her arms.
“Then it will have plenty of company.”
Cutter withdrew, but the danger was not over.
By nightfall, word of the hidden records had spread through the county. Families came to Willow Crossing carrying old receipts, contracts, and court notices. Gideon compared their documents to the original account books.
The evidence was overwhelming.
Cassian had altered interest rates, invented fees, changed boundary lines, and forged signatures. Entire farms had been taken for debts that never existed.
Yet the most important discovery remained six miles from Briarwood.
Cypress House.
Gideon wanted to leave immediately, but Elara stopped him.
“If June is there, Cassian may move her once he learns we found the ledger.”
“That is why we cannot wait.”
“And if Cypress House is guarded?”
“Then I find another way inside.”
“You will not help her by getting yourself killed.”
Gideon looked away.
For seven years, he had imagined finding June in a hundred different places. He had never allowed himself to imagine what condition she might be in.
Elara placed the brass key on the table.
“This opens Briarwood’s private gates. Hester gave it to me.”
“Cypress House is not Briarwood.”
“But its supplies arrive from Briarwood every Thursday morning.”
Tomorrow was Thursday.
Before sunrise, Gideon hid beneath a canvas in Amos Reed’s delivery wagon. Elara accompanied Ruth in a second wagon carrying bread and medicine.
The guards at Cypress House recognized the Briarwood seal on the supply documents and opened the gate.
The property consisted of a small cottage surrounded by high hedges. Its windows were covered from the inside.
Elara kept the guards occupied while Gideon entered through the rear.
He found a woman sitting beside an unlit fireplace.
Her hair, once dark, was streaked with gray. Her face was thin, and she held a silver locket between her fingers.
Gideon could not speak.
The woman looked toward him.
“Gideon?”
He crossed the room in two steps and dropped to his knees before her.
June touched his face as though afraid he might disappear.
“You took your time.”
He laughed and wept at once.
“I searched everywhere.”
“I know.”
“Why didn’t you send word?”
“I tried.”
She showed him scars around one wrist.