Chapter 10 - The Lie the Valley Believed
Arthur wanted to ride into town immediately.
Leanne stopped him.
“If Dunn is involved, taking the ledger to him gives him the evidence.”
Arthur paced.
“Then the federal marshal.”
“Can we reach him?”
Not during winter.
They needed witnesses.
Jedidiah came the next morning.
When Arthur showed him the ledger, the old doctor sat down.
He knew some of the names.
Families driven from farms.
Men injured in unexplained accidents.
Jedidiah admitted something else.
He had suspected Thomas Liang’s death was not accidental.
That was why he had brought Leanne to Arthur.
“You knew?”
Leanne asked.
“I knew Thomas had mentioned Vane. I knew Arthur’s fire involved Vane’s land purchases. I did not know how.”
Arthur was furious.
“You put her here knowing she might be in danger?”
“I put her with the only man in this valley Silas Vane fears.”
Arthur laughed bitterly.
“He doesn’t fear me.”
Jedidiah looked at him.
“He should.”
But Arthur no longer wanted revenge.
Not exactly.
For the first time, he wanted truth.
He wanted Samuel’s name cleared of the ugly gossip.
He wanted Anna remembered not as the wife of a madman, but as a woman murdered because she tried to expose corruption.
And he wanted Leanne safe.
That last realization unsettled him.
Because sometime during the winter, Leanne had stopped being a stranger sheltering in his house.
May you like
She had become part of the reason he returned to it each evening.
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