She looked up at me, and I had never seen my mother look so afraid.

Chapter 4

“I should have given you this six years ago,” she whispered.

PART 4

My father’s letter was two pages long, written on yellow legal paper, folded in thirds.

Nicky,

If you’re reading this, your mother decided it was time, or something has happened to me and she had no other choice. I’m sorry either way.

Wade Cain is buying this county the way a man buys a used truck—a piece at a time, cheap, and he doesn’t care what he has to break. I’ve been keeping notes. Names, dates, which permits got denied right before which family sold. Don Harper is in it up to his neck. So is somebody at the courthouse. I don’t know who yet.

I put everything in a safe deposit box at First Citizens in Harlow, not here. Box 214. Your mother has the second key.

Don’t let her talk you into being careful. Careful is how they win.

I love you. I’m proud of you. Make sure your brother eats something besides gas-station burritos.

—Dad

I read it three times. The third time, my hands were shaking so badly the paper rattled.

“Six years,” I said.

Mom was sitting on the edge of the bed with her sling against her chest. She looked so small.

“Six years, Mom. I stood at his grave. I wore my dress uniform and I saluted his casket and I believed it was an accident because you told me it was. You let me believe it.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She didn’t answer right away. Outside, a dog barked twice and went quiet.

“Two days after the funeral,” she said finally, “Don Harper came to this house. He sat in that kitchen and ate a slice of my pound cake. Then he told me how proud the whole county was of you. How you were up for battalion command. How it’d be a terrible thing if a soldier’s career got ruined over rumors. Over a crazy grieving daughter making accusations against respected men.” She pressed her lips together. “Then he told me how dangerous the roads can be. For anybody. Even soldiers home on leave.”

I sat down on the floor.

“He threatened me.”

“He threatened my child,” she said, and her voice broke. “Your father was already gone, Nicole. I couldn’t bring him back. But I could keep you away from here. So I took that letter and I locked it up and I told you it was an accident, and every Christmas you came home and asked me if I was all right, and I said yes. Because that was the price.”

“That wasn’t your price to pay.”

“I’m your mother,” she said simply. “Every price is mine to pay.”

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. I wanted to be angry. Part of me was. A soldier hates nothing more than being protected from the truth. But I looked at her bruised face and her stiff, wrapped shoulder, and I understood, with a terrible clarity, that she had been fighting this war alone for six years. And she had been losing ground every single day so I wouldn’t have to.

I got up and knelt in front of her and put my forehead against her good shoulder.

“No more secrets,” I said.

“No more secrets,” she whispered.

“Where’s the second key?”

She reached into her apron pocket—she was still wearing the apron—and handed me a small brass key on a faded red ribbon. She had carried it on her body for six years.

Harlow was forty minutes north, across the county line, outside of Wade Cain’s reach. Or so I thought.

Marcus met us at First Citizens Bank at nine the next morning. The branch manager, a soft-spoken man named Gerald Pratt, pulled up the account and frowned at his screen for a very long time.

“Mrs. Turner,” he said carefully. “I’m a little confused.”

“About what?”

“Box 214 was accessed last Thursday.” He turned the monitor toward us. “With your signature on the entry card. And your key.”

My mother stared at the screen.

“I was at my diner last Thursday,” she said slowly. “From five in the morning until eight at night. Forty people saw me.”

“The second key,” I said. “Mom, where’s Dad’s key? The first one?”

Her face drained of color.

“It was in his dresser,” she said. “In the cufflink box. I never moved it.”

“Who has been inside your house in the last month?”

She didn’t want to say it. I watched her try not to.

“Only family,” she whispered.

Gerald Pratt cleared his throat. “We have camera footage of the vault room. The gentleman was wearing a ball cap, but—”

He clicked play.

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