Read Chapter 9: The Marshal's Secret

The lantern in Eli Hawk’s office window threw a long amber stripe across the muddy street. Maeve stood in the shadow of the livery stable, the counterfeit coin burning a hole in her canvas bag, watching the marshal pace behind his desk with a man she didn’t recognize.

She’d followed him from the assay office after slipping out the back before he could see her. But now, crouched in the cold night air with the smell of horse manure and wet hay filling her nose, she hesitated. The coin was proof. Real proof. If she showed it to him, she’d have to explain why she was in his office in the first place, rifling through dead men’s belongings.

Through the grimy window, Eli stopped pacing. His voice came low and tight, barely carrying across the street.

“Silas was supposed to be untouchable. I vouched for him.”

The other man—a deputy with a dusty coat and a tin star that caught the lamplight—shook his head. “You can’t blame yourself for what happened in Bitterroot, Marshal. Silas made his choices.”

“He made them because I gave him a badge and told him to dig.” Eli’s fist came down on the desk hard enough to rattle the glass in the window frame. “I told him I’d keep him safe. And what did I give him? A target painted on his back.”

Maeve’s breath fogged in the cold. Bitterroot. She’d heard the name whispered in Gold Creek only once, from a drunk prospector who claimed he’d been run out of the territory after a claim dispute turned bloody. She pressed herself deeper into the shadow as the deputy spoke again.

“What do you want me to do about it now?”

Eli turned away from the window, his face suddenly unreadable in the flickering light. “Find him. Silas went missing three weeks ago. Last letter said he was coming here—he said he had evidence that would break the whole damned thing wide open.”

“Here? Gold Creek?” The deputy scratched his chin. “Why here?”

“Because this is where it started.” Eli’s voice dropped so low Maeve had to strain to hear him. “This is where my brother died. And Silas was the only one who knew why.”

Cold fear tightened Maeve’s chest. Silas. The name meant nothing to her, but the pattern was unmistakable. Another man investigating the Blue Ridge Lode. Another man who’d gone missing.

She’d heard enough. Moving carefully, she skirted the edge of the livery and crossed the street at an angle that kept her out of the lamplight, her skirts whispering against the packed earth. She was nearly to the hotel’s back door when a hand closed around her arm.

“You’ve got a habit of showing up where you don’t belong, Mrs. O’Donnell.”

She whirled. Eli Hawk stood inches behind her, his face barely visible in the dark. He’d slipped out of the office so quietly she hadn’t heard a single footstep.

“I was walking home,” she said, pulling her arm free. “I was shot at tonight. Or did you forget?”

“I didn’t forget.” His jaw tightened. “And I didn’t forget that you were standing outside my office window for the last five minutes.”

The lie died on her lips. He knew. Of course he knew—he was a lawman, trained to spot watchers.

“You mentioned a man named Silas,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “A man who went missing. Same way your brother went missing. Same way the prospector in my hotel went missing.” She took a step closer, close enough to see the muscle jump in his cheek. “Who is he, Marshal? What did he know?”

Eli was silent for a long moment. The wind carried the sound of the saloon’s piano, tinny and off-key, from down the street.

“Silas was a miner,” he finally said. “And a good one. He could look at a rock and tell you whether it was worth digging under. He came to me in Bitterroot two years ago with a story about a claim deed that didn’t add up—the signatures were wrong, the survey dates were wrong.” He paused. “Everything about it was wrong except the money it was making somebody.”

“Blue Ridge Lode.”

He didn’t confirm it. He didn’t have to. The look in his eyes said everything.

“I helped him investigate,” Eli continued. “Gave him a marshal’s star, made him a deputy so he could access records. He found evidence. Real evidence—paperwork that tied the fraudulent deeds to a company out of San Francisco.”

“McCormick & Associates,” Maeve said.

Eli’s gaze sharpened. “Where did you hear that name?”

“I found it. In the assay office.” She didn’t mention the locket. Not yet. Trust was a thing you built brick by brick, not all at once, especially with a man who was clearly keeping secrets of his own. “It was on a bank receipt connected to the sale of the Blue Ridge deed.”

“Then you understand why Silas went missing.” Eli’s voice grew rough. “He was supposed to meet me here two weeks ago with the original documents. He never showed. I’ve been looking for him ever since.”

“And I’m the only one still breathing who’s asking questions.”

That stopped him. He looked at her for a long moment, something shifting in his expression—respect, maybe, or worry.

“Yes,” he said. “You are.”

Up close, she noticed details she’d missed before. The way his fingers rested on the butt of his revolver, a habit born of constant vigilance. The scar that ran from his temple into his hairline, faded silver against his skin. The weight in his eyes that had nothing to do with the night’s cold.

The questions piled up in her throat. Why had he come to Gold Creek pretending to be a stranger to the case? Why hadn’t he told her about Silas until she caught him speaking of the man in a low voice in the night? Why did he keep looking at her like she was both a problem and a promise?

A thought formed, ugly and unwelcome. Her brother-in-law had warned her about men who wore badges. Men who told pretty stories about justice while picking the bones of the town clean.

Why should Eli Hawk be any different?

She opened her mouth to ask him about the badge he was no doubt wearing even now—the badge that represented a marshal’s authority, a marshal’s duty. But something in his eyes made her stop. He was holding something back. She could see it in the too-even set of his shoulders, the way he didn’t quite meet her gaze.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she asked.

“I’ve told you more than I should already.” He stepped back. “Stay inside tonight, Mrs. O’Donnell. Lock your doors.”

He turned and walked away before she could respond.

---

Maeve couldn’t sleep. The counterfeit coin sat on her nightstand, gleaming dully in the light of a single candle. She kept watching the window, expecting to see a man with a rifle taking aim at the glass again. But the street was quiet. Too quiet.

She pulled her shawl around her shoulders and slipped out the back way, down the narrow path between the hotel and the barbershop, following the sound of footsteps she’d heard from her window upstairs. Eli was walking toward the treeline at the north edge of town, carrying a small shovel.

Her heart hammered. In four years of running the hotel, she’d seen plenty of men bury things in the dark—stolen goods, gambling debts, secrets they didn’t want the town to know. But she’d never expected Eli Hawk to be one of them.

She followed at a careful distance, staying low behind the scrub pines. Eli stopped beneath a gnarled oak at the edge of the forest. He looked around once, twice, then knelt and began to dig.

Maeve watched, frozen, as he pulled something from his coat. A glint of metal caught the moonlight. She pressed a hand to her mouth.

The marshal’s star. The badge he wore every day, pinned to his chest for all of Gold Creek to see.

He buried it in the hole, covered it with dirt, and pressed the ground flat with the sole of his boot. Then he stood, wiped his hands on his trousers, and walked back toward town without looking back.

Maeve stayed hidden until his footsteps faded. Then she crept forward, heart pounding, and knelt in the same spot. The dirt was soft. Loose. She scraped it aside with her fingers until her nails hit metal.

The badge was cold in her palm. She turned it over. There was an engraving on the back, worn and faded but still legible.

*Bitterroot* — *Deputy Marshal*.

Not Gold Creek.

She looked at the name scratched beneath it, and the world tilted sideways.

Silas Cole.

Eli Hawk wasn’t Silas’s superior.

Silas Cole was him.