Read Chapter 15: The Minister's Visit

The knock came at the front door as Maeve was pouring Eli his third cup of coffee. She glanced through the lace curtain and saw a tall man in a black frock coat standing on the porch, a wide-brimmed hat pressed to his chest. His face was weathered but kind, the kind that had seen too many funerals and too few weddings.

"Reverend Thorne," he said when she opened the door. "Traveling minister. I heard there's a widow in Gold Creek who runs the finest boarding house in the territory, and I wondered if she might have a room for a man of God."

Maeve hesitated. The hotel had been fuller than usual since the trouble started—men afraid to sleep alone in their own cabins, miners who'd rather pay for a locked door than risk the dark. She had one room left, the smallest, the one with the crooked window that faced the livery.

"I can pay," Thorne added, misreading her pause. He reached into his coat and produced a worn leather purse. "And I bring news that might interest you both."

Eli had risen from his chair, his hand resting casually near his holster. "What news would that be, Reverend?"

Thorne stepped inside, letting the door close behind him. He smelled of woodsmoke and horses, and his boots were caked with trail dust. "I was coming down from the high country, past the old Crawford Cutoff. Three days ago, I saw a man matching the description of Silas Cole. Gray hair, blind in one eye, walkin' with a limp."

Maeve felt the floor tilt. She grabbed the edge of the sideboard. "That's not possible."

"I know what I saw, ma'am. I was a chaplain in the war. I learned to read a man's face from a hundred yards." Thorne lowered his voice. "He had a camp up there, tucked into a draw. Looked like he'd been there a while. Fire ring, lean-to, the works."

Eli's jaw tightened. His brother, dead in a mine shaft. That was the story they'd all accepted—the body found with Silas Cole's watch and papers. But a dead man couldn't camp in the mountains. A dead man couldn't have sent Hollis to find him.

"Did you speak to him?" Eli asked.

"Came close, but he spooked. Saw me and took off into the timber like a deer. I figured I'd come down and let someone know. A man that old, alone up there..." Thorne shook his head. "Didn't seem right."

Maeve exchanged a look with Eli. She saw the hunger in his eyes—that desperate, dangerous hope that his brother might still be alive. She also saw the calculation behind it, the way his hand had moved to the map in his pocket.

"We'll go at first light," Eli said.

"Alone?" Maeve asked.

"Just the two of us. We can be there by nightfall if we push."

Thorne coughed politely. "If you don't mind a suggestion, Marshal—that country's rough. Hollers and false trails everywhere. I can draw you a map, save you a day of wandering."

Eli nodded slowly. "I'd be obliged."

That night, Maeve wrote down the directions on a scrap of paper while Thorne ate supper in the dining room. She watched him through the door as he laughed at something old Mrs. Petty said, his face open and warm. There was nothing threatening about him. And yet.

"You don't trust him," Eli said, appearing at her elbow.

"I don't trust anyone who arrives with news that's too good to be true."

"How good is it, Maeve? Tell me what you know about my brother. About any of this."

She wanted to tell him everything. The map with its coordinates, the locket receipt from McCormick & Associates, the deed blanks she'd seen in Price's back office. But every time she opened her mouth, she saw Price's face in her mind, his voice smooth as oil: *Foreclose. Six months. The bank holds your note now.*

"Not now," she said. "We'll talk on the trail."

---

They left before dawn, the horses' breath fogging the cold air. Maeve had packed enough food for two days, extra blankets, and the second compass hidden in her saddlebag. She hadn't told Eli about it. She wore it like a secret weight against her hip.

Thorne's directions took them up past the old Stamp Mill and into the pine country, where the trees grew so thick the sun barely reached the forest floor. Eli rode ahead, scanning the ground for sign. He was good at it. She noticed the way he read the earth, the small disturbances in the duff that she would have missed.

"Here," he said around noon, dismounting. He crouched by a shallow creek bed. "Fresh prints. Shod horse, moving slow. Came through maybe a day ago."

"Could be anyone."

"Could be." But his voice had an edge of excitement that made her heart ache. He'd spent so long chasing a ghost. Now the ghost had a trail.

They found the camp an hour later, tucked into a draw just as Thorne had described. A lean-to built of pine boughs, a fire ring with cold ash, a tin cup sitting on a stump like the occupant had just stepped away.

Eli walked through the camp slowly, touching things with reverent hands. He picked up a worn leather glove and held it for a long moment.

"It's his," he said. "He always tied his gloves with this knot. Said it held better than any buckle."

Maeve watched him. "Eli—"

"He's alive." Eli's voice cracked. "All this time, and he's alive."

Something pricked at the back of Maeve's neck. That feeling she'd learned to trust since the day her husband died, the one that whispered *look around, look harder*. She scanned the camp. The lean-to was well-built, but there was something off about it. The fire ring hadn't been used in days, the ash cold and settled. The tin cup was clean. Too clean, for a man who'd been living rough.

"Eli," she said slowly. "There are no boot prints. No tracks leading away from the camp."

He turned, frowning. "What?"

"A man lives here, he walks around. He fetches water, gathers wood, answers the call of nature. There would be paths beaten into the duff. But this camp is... staged."

Eli looked at the ground, then back at the lean-to, and she saw the hope drain out of his face. Replace it with something harder. Colder.

"He set us up," Eli said. "Thorne. He brought us out here."

"Or someone sent him to bring us out here."

They mounted in silence and rode back fast, the horses lathered by the time Gold Creek appeared in the valley below. The sun was sinking, painting the town in shades of copper and gold. Maeve's heart was pounding. She couldn't say why.

They found Thorne in front of the church, a small white building with a crooked steeple that had never quite been finished. He was lying on his back at the bottom of the bell tower, arms splayed, eyes open to the sky.

A small crowd had gathered. Doc Miller knelt beside the body, shaking his head.

"Fell," the doctor said. "Must've been up in the tower, lost his footing. Happens more than you'd think."

Maeve pushed through the crowd. She knelt on the other side of the body, ignoring Doc Miller's startled protest. Thorne's frock coat was bunched up around his shoulders, and there was blood on his chest. Too much blood for a fall.

She reached out and unbuttoned the coat.

Doc Miller grabbed her wrist. "Maeve, don't—"

She shook him off and pulled the coat open. The knife wound was neat and precise, a thin line of red just above the heart. She'd seen enough butchering to know a kill wound when she saw one.

"He was stabbed," she said, loud enough for the crowd to hear. "Someone killed him before he could talk."

Eli materialized at her side, his hand on his revolver. "That someone is probably still in town."

The crowd muttered and shifted. Maeve looked up, scanning the faces. There was Mrs. Petty with her hand over her mouth, the blacksmith with his arms crossed, the livery boy clutching his cap.

And there, at the back of the crowd, standing in the shadow of the mercantile, was Deputy Barnes. He met her eyes for just a moment, then turned and walked away.

Maeve stood, her hands shaking. The compass in her saddlebag suddenly felt heavier. Whoever had sent Thorne knew they'd find the empty camp. Knew they'd come back with questions.

They'd killed the messenger to keep him quiet.

But the message had already been delivered. And now someone in Gold Creek knew that Maeve O'Donnell and Eli Hawk were hunting for Silas Cole's brother.

"Eli," she said quietly, so only he could hear. "We need to leave town. Tonight."

His eyes met hers. "Where?"

She thought of the map in her pocket, the coordinates she'd never shown him, the locket receipt with McCormick & Associates' letterhead.

"I'll show you," she said. "I'll show you everything."