Chapter 29
Martha woke with the taste of blood in her mouth.
For several seconds, she did not know where she was. Pain pulsed through the back of her skull in slow, sickening waves, each beat of her heart seeming to drive it deeper.
She tried to raise one hand to her head and discovered that her wrists were tied together in front of her. The coarse rope had already abraded the skin beneath it, and the sting brought the last moments at the inn rushing back with brutal clarity.
Martha opened her eyes fully.
She lay on her side on a narrow cot pushed against one wall of a rough log shack.
The mattress beneath her was little more than striped ticking filled with old straw; some of it had worked through a split near her shoulder and scratched her cheek.
A squat iron stove occupied the opposite corner, its black pipe disappearing through a crude hole in the roof.
Someone had fed it recently, but not well.
Heat collected around the stove while cold still crept through the chinks between the logs and settled along the floor.
There was no proper window, only a square opening covered by a wooden shutter. Thin blades of fading afternoon light slipped around its edges. A scarred table stood near the stove with two mismatched chairs beside it, and three men's coats hung from wooden pegs near the door.
Three.
Martha stared at them until the ache behind her eyes sharpened.
More than one man was here.
She pushed herself upright, bracing one shoulder against the wall when the entire room seemed to tilt. Nausea rolled through her. She closed her eyes, breathed slowly through her nose, and waited for the floor to steady beneath her boots.
Her shoulder ached where she must have struck the boards at the inn.
When she gingerly touched the back of her head with her bound hands, she found a swollen knot hidden beneath her hair.
Her fingertips came away clean, at least. Whatever blood she had tasted seemed to be from where she'd bitten the inside of her cheek.
Voices carried from outside, as well as the sound of men laughing.
The sound turned her stomach more effectively than the blow to her head had.
Martha drew her knees closer to the cot and forced herself to listen. She could not make out words through the logs, but she heard at least two distinct voices beyond the door. One rose sharply in laughter before another answered. Metal clinked against metal, perhaps a cup or flask.
Now she understood why Silas had smiled when she had told him she was going to Sheriff Crane.
He had never intended to let her get there.
The latch lifted.
Martha straightened before the door opened.
Silas stepped inside carrying a tin cup. Mud had dried in dark ridges around his boots, and the cold had reddened his ears and cheeks. He shut the door behind him with his heel, then stopped when he saw her sitting upright.
His mouth curved into a cruel smile.
“There she is,” he said, strolling toward the table as though he had merely found her late to breakfast. “I was beginning to wonder if I'd hit you harder than I meant to.”
Martha held his gaze, refusing to touch the tender place on her head again. “You always did have trouble knowing when to stop.”
A faint laugh left him. He placed the tin cup on the table and turned one of the chairs around, straddling it with his forearms resting across the back. His revolver rode low at his hip. A knife sat tucked into his belt on the opposite side.
“Good,” Silas said, his eyes moving over her face. “Still sharp enough to be unpleasant.”
Martha glanced toward the door before looking back at him. “Where am I?”
His brows lifted in mock consideration. “Somewhere we won't be interrupted.”
“That wasn't my question.”
“No.” He rubbed one thumb along the rim of the chair back. “But it's the answer you're getting.”
Outside, one of the men shouted something she could not distinguish. Silas didn’t so much as glance toward the sound.
Martha shifted carefully on the cot. “Who are they?”
Silas followed her gaze to the coats hanging near the door and smiled. “Friends.”
“You don't have friends.”
That earned her a sharper look.
“You used to be more charming,” he said.
Martha let her bound hands rest in her lap so he would not see how hard they were trembling. “I used to be more frightened of you.”
The change in Silas's face lasted less than a second, but she caught it: the slight flattening of his mouth, the sudden stillness around his eyes.
“Careful, Martha.”
The warning should have chilled her.
Instead, it steadied her.
She was afraid. Pretending otherwise would have been foolish. But Silas had already crossed the line she had spent weeks fearing. There was little sense now in trying to appease the better nature she had once convinced herself he possessed.
Martha leaned her head back against the logs. “What do you want?”
His gaze narrowed. “You know exactly what I want.”
“I know you hate Amos. I know you blame him for leaving you to be caught.
And I know you've spent weeks trying to make me suffer because he's dead and I'm still here.” She paused, watching his fingers tighten almost imperceptibly around the chair.
“But you didn't drag me unconscious through the woods merely to frighten me. You could have done that at the inn.”
Silas regarded her in silence.
Martha thought of the questions he had asked since coming to Willow Crossing. Amos. The inn. What he had left. What she'd sold. Which rooms remained unused. At the time, she had dismissed most of them as another form of torment.
Now they rearranged themselves in her memory.
Her heartbeat quickened.
“What are you looking for?” she asked.
Silas's expression changed just enough to confirm she had finally asked the right question.
“The gold.”
For a moment Martha could only stare at him.
Silas's mouth twisted. “Don't.”
“Don't what?”
“Pretend you don't know what I'm talking about.”
“I don't know what you’re talking about.”
He stood so abruptly the chair legs scraped across the floor. “The train money, Martha.”
The word train tightened every muscle in her body.
“Amos took his share,” she said cautiously.
Silas rose from the chair and walked slowly across the room, the easy amusement gone from his movements now. “Amos took more than his share. We’re owed a debt and it’s time to pay up.”
Martha's mouth went dry.
“He was shot,” she said. “Everything happened quickly. We took what we could and ran.”
“No.” Silas stopped a few feet from the cot. “You ran with what he took.”
She watched him carefully. “I don't know how much money Amos had.”
His jaw flexed. “Try again.”
“I can't give you an answer I don't have,” she insisted.
Silas moved faster than she expected.
His hand closed around her jaw, fingers digging into her cheeks as he forced her face upward. Martha's breath caught, but she did not look away.
“You've become terribly righteous,” he murmured.
Speaking against his grip hurt. “No. I’m just not lying anymore.”
He shoved her away.
Martha's shoulder struck the wall hard enough to make the room pitch again. She stayed upright, breathing through the fresh flare of pain while Silas paced toward the stove.
If he truly believed she knew where the money was, then he needed her alive long enough to tell him.
That did not make her safe, but it did give her something to use.
She waited until her voice would come evenly. “How much, exactly, is missing?”
Silas turned.
Martha straightened slowly. “You said Amos took more than his share. How much more?”
Suspicion sharpened his gaze. “You're asking questions now?”
“I've spent weeks answering yours without knowing why.”
Silas gave a humorless smile. “He took enough.”
“That tells me nothing.”
“It bought your inn.”
Martha's eyes moved instinctively toward the rough floor beneath her boots, but her mind had already flown miles away to Willow Crossing.
The inn.
Amos had handled the purchase. Amos had dealt with the seller, counted the money, signed what needed signing. Martha had been occupied with helping make the rooms habitable and convincing herself that the building represented the beginning of another life.
“With stolen money,” she said quietly.
Silas barked a laugh. “Suddenly that bothers you?”
“It should have bothered me sooner.”
The answer seemed to irritate him more than denial would have.
“The inn didn't cost everything Amos took,” Silas said. “Not even close.”
Martha frowned. A chill worked its way through her despite the stove.
“You think he hid the rest?”
“I know he did.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“Because I knew Amos.”
“So did I.”
Silas's smile became ugly. “Not as well as you thought.”
The words found their mark, and Martha hated him for seeing it.
Amos had lied before they married. He had allowed her to believe he was someone else until the truth became impossible to hide. Even after she knew about the gang, there had been plans discussed without her, meetings she was not invited to, money she never saw.
Perhaps Amos had simply never trusted her with everything.
Silas watched the doubt settle across her face and gave a soft, satisfied sound.
“There it is.”
Martha's attention snapped back to him. “I still don't know where any gold is.”
“But now you're wondering whether he hid it from you.”
She could have lied, and yesterday, she might have. “Yes,” she said, instead.
His satisfaction faltered at her refusal to be ashamed of the answer.
“If Amos hid money,” Martha continued, “he never told me. I've lived in that inn every day since we bought it. I've repaired walls, moved furniture, emptied drawers, cleaned rooms nobody had opened in years. I have never found a cache of gold.” She laughed bitterly. “And if I had, don’t you think I would have at least kept up with paying basic bills, like for the meat and the structure of the place? What? You think I’m sitting on gold that I desperately need?”
Silas leaned one shoulder against the stove wall, arms folding across his chest. “Well, maybe you haven't looked in the right place.”