Chapter Twenty-One
Bacon.
That was what pulled Logan out of sleep. The smell of bacon curling up the stairs and under his door like a hand grabbing him by the collar. He lay there for a second. Just a second. Staring at the ceiling.
Last night, at the pond, Grace had fallen asleep against his chest, and he’d stayed awake listening to her breathing.
He’d carried her to Penny half-asleep, rode back with her leaning into him the whole way—he’d have to ride out again later to get poor Dutch—and walked her to her bedroom door, where she’d looked up at him with those honey-brown eyes, said goodnight, Ten-Bucks, and shut the door.
Ten-Bucks. On account of the joke. She’d given him a nickname on account of his stupid joke, and the fact that it stuck made him want to—
Anyway.
Bacon.
He swung his legs off the bed, pulled on trousers and a clean shirt, and ran a hand through his hair, which needed cutting. But haircuts required a trip to town, and trips to town required leaving Grace and the baby, and lately that math kept coming out in favor of staying.
He headed for the stairs, but the office door caught his eye on the way past.
It was open. About two inches. He’d closed that door last night before supper, same as every night, because Logan Foster closed doors.
All of them. Every time. The front, the back, the kitchen window latch, and the office.
Especially the office, which held the deeds, the cash reserves, the accounting ledgers, and—
The silver.
He pushed the door open.
Every drawer in the desk hung open. The big one on the left, where he kept the ledgers, had been pulled clean out of the housing and sat upside down on the floor, and the papers fanned across the rug like somebody had dumped them and sorted through them fast.
The strongbox sat on the desk with its lid up. The lock hung loose. It had been picked rather than broken, and the keyhole was scratched around the edges with the marks of a tool.
Logan’s hands balled into fists at his sides.
The deed. He checked. Still there, folded in its oilcloth at the bottom of the box.
The cash reserves—forty-two dollars in mixed bills—were still stacked under the deed.
But the top compartment, the shallow one where he’d placed Grace’s silver nugget in a square of cloth and set it right where he could see it every time he opened the lid…
Empty.
“Mason! Thomas!” He shook. “Pa! Jonah! Get in here! Now!”
Boots on the stairs. Multiple sets, moving fast.
Mason appeared first, shirtless, hair standing in six directions, one boot on and one boot clutched in his hand like a weapon.
Thomas came behind him, fully dressed because Thomas slept in his clothes half the time on account of being too lazy to change.
Jonah stumbled in next, belt unbuckled, squinting against the hall light.
Pa came last. Slow on the stairs, working those knees, but his eyes had that flinty look, the one that meant the old man had read the tone of the yell and already shifted into the harder version of himself.
“What happened?” Mason’s gaze swept the room. “What the… who did this?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Logan pointed at the desk. “Somebody came into this house last night, opened my office, picked the strongbox lock, and went through every drawer I own.”
“While we were sleepin’?” Thomas stepped over the upturned drawer and crouched by the desk. “That’s… Logan, that’s not possible. The doors were locked. I checked the front myself before bed.”
“Well, somebody got in. Unless you’re suggestin’ my papers threw themselves on the floor for fun.”
“The windows?” Pa stood in the doorway. “Check the windows.”
Mason crossed to the office window and tested the latch. “Locked. From the inside. Ain’t been touched.”
“Kitchen window?” Logan looked at Thomas.
“I’ll check.” Thomas disappeared down the hall. His voice echoed back ten seconds later. “Kitchen’s locked! Parlor too!”
Pa frowned. “Back door?”
Jonah jogged toward the rear of the house. A pause. Then his boots came back fast.
“Back door’s picked too.” He appeared in the office doorway, breathing hard. “That’s where they came in.”
“What’d they take?” Pa stroked his chin. “The deed? The money?”
“Deed’s here. Money’s here. All forty-two dollars.”
“Then what—”
“The silver.” Logan stared at the empty compartment. “Grace’s silver. The nugget she found at the high pasture. That’s the only thing missin’.”
“That don’t make no sense.” Mason shook his head. “Why take a three-dollar chunk of silver and leave forty-two dollars in cash sittin’ right underneath it? That’s… Who does that?”
Pa hummed. “Somebody who wasn’t lookin’ for money.”
“What do you mean?” Thomas leaned against the wall. “What else would they be lookin’ for?”
“I mean somebody came into this house, picked a lock, searched this desk, and took the one thing that came out of the ground.” Pa looked at Logan. “They weren’t robbin’ us, son. They were lookin’ for somethin’ specific. And they took the silver because it told ’em what they needed to know.”
“Which is what?”
“That was a nugget, not a coin. They’ll assume we found it and that there’s more where it came from.”
The floor creaked behind them.
Grace stood in the hall with Miriam on her hip. Grace’s eyes moved from the upturned drawer to the open strongbox to Logan’s face, and whatever she found on his face made her pull Miriam tighter against her chest.
“Logan? What happened?”
“Somebody broke in last night. Went through the office.”
“Broke in? While we were—” Her arm tightened around the baby. “While Miriam and I were sleeping?”
“Looks that way.”
“Oh, Lord.”
Her face went pale under the freckles. Her muscles locked into place, her jaw set, and she pulled closer to her.
“The silver’s gone.” Logan clenched his fists. “The nugget from the pasture. That’s the only thing they took.”
“Damn the silver to hell; they were in the house!”
“Grace—”
“Miriam is here, Logan!” She looked at the nursery door down the hall. “Someone walked through this house in the dark while my baby—”
“Our baby.”
Grace’s eyes snapped to his.
“Our baby.” He glances at Miriam. “And nobody’s gettin’ near her. Or you. Not while I’m breathin’. You understand me?”
Miriam, who had impeccable timing for a person with no concept of time, chose this moment to let out a wail that split the air like a saw blade. Grace bounced her, shushing against the top of her head, but her eyes stayed locked on Logan’s.
“We’re gonna figure out who did this.” He crossed the room to her. Put one hand on the baby’s back and the other on Grace’s arm, right above the elbow. “I’m gonna figure it out, and I’m gonna make this house safe. That’s a promise.”
She nodded.
“Now.” He squeezed her arm. “Go feed her. We’ll eat quick and then I need every man outside checkin’ the property.”
***
Breakfast lasted twelve minutes.
Grace’s bacon, the eggs, the biscuits, all of it tasted like nothing on Logan’s tongue, because his tongue had disconnected from the rest of his body somewhere between the office and the kitchen.
He ate because Pa had taught him to eat before a crisis. A man who won’t feed himself ain’t fit to make decisions about nothin’ else. So, he ate.
Then they rode out.
Five men on horseback, fanning across the property in the early light. Mason and Jonah took the north line, Thomas rode east toward the creek crossing, and Pa made his way to the west perimeter.
Logan rode the south fence. The long stretch that ran from the barn to the property marker, about two miles of barbed wire strung between posts he’d set himself three summers ago. Good posts, sunk deep, braced at the proper angle.
He met the others at the main gate an hour later.
“North line’s clean.” Mason dismounted and looped his reins over the fence. “Every post, every wire. Checked the gate twice. Lock’s still on, chain’s still tight.”
“East too.” Thomas rode up from the creek crossing. “I went all the way to the tree line. Nothin’. Not even a boot print.”
“West is the same.” Pa eased off his mare with a grunt. “Whoever came in didn’t come through the fence.”
“Then how?” Jonah pulled his hat off and dragged a hand through his hair. “I mean… How do you get onto a property this size without cuttin’ wire or breakin’ a gate? You can’t just waltz through—”
“You can if you know the property.” Logan stared at the fence line. “You can if you’ve been watchin’ it long enough to know where the gaps run and where the sight lines break.”
“There ain’t gaps in this fence. You just said—”
“I ain’t talkin’ about the fence. I’m talkin’ about the land.” Logan pointed south, toward the tree line that bordered the creek. “See those cottonwoods?”
Jonah nodded. “The ones that grow right up against the wire on the south side?”
“A man could come through those trees from the creek bed and stay in cover the whole way to the back of the house. Never cross the fence at all. Just follow the creek up to where it passes under the wire at the drainage culvert.”
Mason frowned. “Ain’t no way a man can pass through there. The culvert’s… what? Two feet of clearance?”
“I dunno…” Jonah shook his head. “A man on his belly…”
Nobody spoke for a second. The five men stood at the fence, staring at the spot where the creek disappeared under the wire and reappeared on the other side, all of them running the same math.
“Alright.” Logan rubbed the back of his neck. “So, we got a vulnerability at the creek culvert. And the back door’s the weakest entry because it faces away from the bunkhouse and the barn.”
“We could bar the culvert.” Thomas crossed his arms. “Drop some heavy rocks in the channel. Or put a grate across it.”
“Grate’d be better.” Mason nodded. “Iron bars, sunk into the creek bed on both sides. Water flows through, but nothin’ bigger’n a trout gets past.”
“That’s a day’s work, minimum.” Pa leaned against the fence. “Ironwork, settin’ posts in the water, anchorin’ it so the spring runoff don’t rip it out.”
“I can help with the ironwork.” Jonah stepped forward. “I’m still useless with a pitchfork, but I grew up around a forge in New York. My—uh, I did some work near a blacksmith’s shop as a kid. I can handle iron.”
“Good. You and Mason handle the grate. Thomas, I want you on the back door. New lock, a proper deadbolt, and a bar on the inside. The kind that drops into a bracket. I don’t want a picked lock bein’ the only thing between somebody and my family.”
“What about the windows?” Pa straightened up. “Ground floor’s got six windows, and half of ’em got latches a child could jimmy with a butter knife.”
“New latches on all of ’em. I’ll ride to town this afternoon for the hardware.”
“I’ll go.” Thomas held up a hand. “You stay here with Grace and the baby. I’ll get the hardware and be back before dark.”
Logan opened his mouth to argue—because Logan argued on principle about everything that involved somebody else doing a job he’d planned to do himself—
“I ain’t askin’, Logan. You need to be at the house. Grace needs you at the house. I’ll get the damn latches.”
“And I’ll ride the perimeter again after lunch.” Pa pulled his hat down against the sun. “Full circuit. Take my time. If somebody’s been watchin’ this property, they left signs somewhere. Bent grass, boot prints near the tree line, somethin’. I’ll find it.”
Logan braced both hands on the fence rail. The wire hummed under his palms. Beyond the wire, the south pasture rolled out green toward the tree line, and beyond the trees, the creek ran its hidden course through the cottonwoods.
Peaceful. Just land and grass and the kind of quiet that used to mean safety.
Except the quiet had lied to him before. Two years ago, the quiet had sat over this ranch like a blanket while he’d ridden three days south on a cattle drive, and the world had come apart behind him.
The porch.
Ma on the porch. The sheriff’s words. Almost made it to the door.
And now, somebody had walked through that same house in the dark—past the nursery, past Grace’s room, past the room where a baby slept in a crib he’d carved roses into—and the fences hadn’t stopped them.
The locks hadn’t stopped them. The gates and the wire and all the control Logan had poured into this property for two years…
all of it built on the idea that if he just locked the world out tight enough, nothing bad could touch the people inside.
None of it had worked.
His hands tightened on the wire until the barbs pressed dents into his palms.
“Logan.” Pa stood beside him. “This ain’t the same.”
“Pa—”
“I know what you’re thinkin’. And this ain’t the same.”
“Somebody broke into our house while my wife and my daughter slept down the hall from me, and I didn’t—” His jaw locked. “I didn’t hear a thing. Not a footstep, not a creak, not a—”
“Neither did I. Neither did your brothers. Neither did Jonah, who—”
“Jonah was in the bunkhouse.”
“And he sleeps lighter’n a cat. Runs like one too.”
“That don’t make me feel better.”
“It ain’t supposed to make you feel better. It’s supposed to make you think. Whoever did this knew what they were doin’. Knew the property, knew the house, knew how to move quiet. That ain’t your failure. That’s somebody who planned this.”
Logan stared at the tree line.
“I can’t—” He stopped. Swallowed. Started again. “If somethin’ happens to them, Pa. If somethin’ happens to Grace or the baby because I—”
“Stop.”
“I already lost—”
“Stop.” Pa’s hand landed on his shoulder. “You listen to me. What happened to your ma happened because a bad man did a bad thing. Not because you failed her. Not because you shoulda been here. Not because the fence ran wrong or the lock gave out.”
“But if I’d been home—”
“If you’d been home, you might’ve stopped it. Or you might’ve died alongside her. Either way, the blame sits on the man who pulled the trigger, and it don’t move from that spot no matter how many fences you build or how many locks you check.”
Logan’s throat closed up.
“Now.” Pa squeezed his shoulder once and let go. “You got a family up at that house that needs you thinkin’ clear and actin’ smart. You understand me?”
Logan pulled his hands off the wire. The barb marks dented white across both palms, fading as the blood came back.
“Yeah.” He flexed his fingers. “Yeah, I understand.”