Chapter 29 #2
“You have?” Martha thought of Jonas finding him in her office. The overturned drawers. The strange disturbances around the inn.
“The office,” she said. “You've searched it.”
Silas did not answer.
“The stable too, I’m sure.”
His mouth tightened.
“You set the fire.”
Silas glanced toward her.
She had suspected him, of course. But suspicion was different from watching the absence of denial settle into a man's face.
“But why burn it? If there was gold hidden there, you destroyed it!”
“I burned it because I knew for certain that the gold wasn’t there and needed a reason to be in the main building more often. I needed to have my own room in the inn, and I was tired of sleeping rough and cold.”
Martha stared at him. “Percy ran into that building.”
“He shouldn't have.”
The words were almost casual.
Anger rose so swiftly that she was on her feet before her head could object. The room swayed, but she braced one hand against the logs until it steadied.
“He could have died.”
Silas smiled faintly at the fury in her face. “But he didn't.”
“You stay away from him.”
“And if I don't?”
Martha stepped toward him despite the rope biting into her wrists. “Then I will make certain Sheriff Crane hears about every single thing you've done.”
Silas laughed. His amusement deepened when recognition crossed her face. “The good old sheriff! That's why you're here, remember?”
Martha held his gaze. “You knew I meant it when I said I was going to him to confess everything.”
His smile thinned.
“You knew I was going to Crane today,” Martha continued. “You couldn't frighten me out of it, so you stopped me another way.”
Silas pushed away from the wall. “You sound proud of yourself.”
“No.” Martha looked down briefly at her bound hands before raising her eyes to him again. “I'm embarrassed at how foolish I’ve been.”
Something outside struck the side of the building. Both of them glanced toward the wall.
A horse, perhaps.
The voices resumed moments later.
If she got out of here, she would remember all of it.
The men. The gold. The stable.
“What happens if I don't know where the money is?” she asked.
Silas turned back to her. “Eventually I'll decide whether I believe you.”
“And then?”
His shoulders lifted slightly. “Then I hand you over.”
Martha frowned. “To whom?”
“Crane. A marshal. Whoever wants you.”
She stared at him.
Silas grinned at her confusion. “What? You thought I was going to kill you?”
“I hadn't ruled it out.”
“That would be the easy way out.”
He walked toward the table and picked up the tin cup, taking a slow drink before continuing.
“I want you alive when all those good people in Willow Crossing learn what Martha Bellamy really is.
I want you standing in front of the sheriff explaining how you helped plan a train robbery.
Maybe they'll put you in a cell. Maybe you'll get lucky and spend years somewhere else.” He lowered the cup.
“Either way, I want you to know what it feels like when the door closes and locks… with you inside it.”
The old fear stirred.
Martha let herself feel it.
She might go to prison. She might lose the inn. Percy might wake tomorrow without knowing whether she would ever come home again.
All of that was possible.
“I was already going to tell him.”
The hand holding the cup stopped halfway to the table.
Martha watched his face. “I told you that yesterday,” she said. “You just didn't believe me.”
“You think confessing changes what you did?”
“No.”
Her answer came too quickly to be mistaken for anything rehearsed.
Silas's brow creased.
“I think it means I finally stopped pretending I could become innocent by refusing to speak about it.” Martha swallowed against the tightness in her throat. “That's all.”
Silas set the cup down with a hard metallic knock. “You always did like making yourself into a martyr.”
Martha almost smiled.
“No. I think I liked making myself blameless.”
That silenced him.
For an instant she thought of Eliza's face in the kitchen. You were protecting yourself.
Then Jonas.
His hurt when he realized she had known what the Voss Gang meant to him.
Martha breathed through the ache the memory brought.
She would not use Silas to escape that pain either. Silas had threatened her. He had terrorized the inn. He had burned the stable.
He had not made her lie to Jonas.
That belonged to her.
Silas began pacing again, restless now. “If you truly don't know where the gold is, you're not much use to me.”
Martha watched the knife at his waist move with every step. “You said there were other ways this could end.”
His movement slowed.
“There are.”
She regretted asking as soon as his attention returned fully to her.
Silas dragged the second chair nearer and sat, leaning forward with his forearms braced on his thighs.
“You tell me where the gold is,” he said, studying her face, “and we leave.”
Martha glanced deliberately toward the coats by the door. “We?”
“You know these men.”
“I know men like them.”
“You used to fit among them well enough.”
Martha thought of cold camps, whispered plans, Amos returning at dawn with blood on his sleeve. “I was frightened most of the time.”
Silas shrugged. “You were useful.”
There it was.
Not family. Not welcome.
Useful.
For years, Martha had remembered the gang as the first place she had belonged after the orphanage.
Perhaps, in some ways, that had been true.
But she could also see now what she had refused to see then.
Amos had needed her loyalty. The others had needed her silence, her quick hands, her willingness to carry messages and watch roads.
Being needed had felt so much like being loved that she had never asked whether they were the same thing.
“You think I want that life again?” she asked.
“I think you want a life.” Silas gestured around him. “Your inn's half-ruined. You're drowning in debt. Half the town watches you like they're waiting for another disaster, and that tracker of yours rode off the moment he found out what you are.”
Martha's shoulders tightened before she could stop them. “Leave Jonas out of this.”
“He's the reason you're sitting there pretending you've found virtue.”
“No.” Martha shook her head slowly. “He's part of the reason I finally stopped pretending I hadn't done anything wrong. That's different.”
Silas leaned back, staring at her.
She surprised herself with the certainty in her own voice. “Jonas didn't make this choice for me,” she continued. “He couldn't. Neither could Eliza. Neither could Amos, for that matter.”
Silas stared at her as if the name itself irritated him.
Martha thought of Amos more clearly than she had in months.
She had loved him.
That remained true.
He had found her when she was young and desperately hungry for a place to belong. He had made her laugh. He had given her the first sense of family she had known since childhood.
He had also lied to her.
He had brought her into a life built on theft and fear. He had betrayed Silas and fled with money that did not belong to him. Perhaps he had hidden even more from her than she knew.
Loving him did not erase those things.
Neither did those things require her to pretend she had never loved him.
The realization hurt, but it did not hollow her out the way it once might have.
Silas mistook her silence for hesitation.
“I could give you more than he did.”
Martha blinked. “Who?”
“Amos.”
His tone made the answer sound obvious.
Martha stared at him.
Silas leaned forward again, his voice lower now, smoother. “You tell me where the gold is. We take it and leave Willow Crossing behind, together.”
“You want me to join you?”
“I want you to be sensible.”
“With a gang you took over after Gideon died?”
Silas's expression sharpened.
Martha felt a flicker of satisfaction.
She had almost forgotten that thread.
“What happened to Gideon?” she asked.
“You know he died.”
“I know what people said.”
“Then why ask?”
“Because you said you're the one in charge now.”
Silas was quiet.
Martha watched him carefully.
“Gideon wouldn't have handed that power over.”
“No.”
The single word carried enough weight.
Her heartbeat quickened and a sick feeling twisted her gut.
“You killed him.”
Silas did not deny it.
Martha thought back to when she had heard of Gideon's death. Two months, perhaps a little more.
“You killed Gideon, took control of whatever remained of the gang, and came here looking for the money Amos stole.”
His eyes narrowed.
Martha made herself hold his gaze despite the cold crawling over her skin.
“That's what happened.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because when I get out of here, I'm going to tell Crane every word of this.”
Silas laughed, but there was no amusement in it now.
“And when will that be?”
Martha's pulse jumped.
She had pushed too hard.
Silas rose from the chair.
Martha took one step backward.
He crossed the room until only inches separated them.
“You still think you're leaving.”
“I do.”
“Why?”
Because Jonas would come.
The thought appeared before she could stop it.
Martha hated herself for it.
She had no right to expect that from him. Jonas had left the inn wounded by truths she had deliberately withheld. He might not even know she was gone.
Instead she said, “Because you haven't killed me yet.”
Silas smiled slowly. “Clever.”
“I learned from unpleasant people.”
His hand shot out and caught her bound wrists.
Martha sucked in a breath as rope ground into damaged skin.
“I am trying very hard to give you a way out of this,” he said.
“There is nothing reasonable about you.”
“You tell me where the gold is, and I can make this worth your trouble.”
“I don't know where it is,” she protested.
His fingers tightened.
“And if I did,” Martha added through her teeth, “I still wouldn't give it to you.”
Silas sneered at her, “I’d think carefully about that answer if I were you.”
“I have.” Her chest rose and fell quickly, but she kept her voice steady as she spoke.
“You could have money again. A proper life. No begging Horace Beckett for meat, no counting pennies for lumber, no wondering whether the next roof beam is going to fall on you.”