“I found Barnaby,” Benjamin says. “He’ll have his agents here later this morning. I gave him the map of the Murphy farm.”
“Good,” Lily says. She’d drawn several copies. “Marvena and Jurgis are gathering men, too, and they have a map. We have enough to go on with the Goshens, but I hope Fiona comes through today at the funeral. She seemed to be hinting she wanted to tell me something more—” Lily shudders. She is not looking forward to the funeral.
“I want to go with you,” Benjamin says.
“To the funeral?” Lily’s confused. Why would he want to do that? Though she’s glad to see him—with an intensity that surprises her—she doesn’t need him by her side.
“Yes,” he says. “Because I sense it will be hard for you. And I think you need a friend by your side.”
Lily stares at him, struck mute by the kindness of his offer.
He smiles. “I’m guessing Marvena or Hildy won’t be there?”
Lily shakes her head softly.
“Well then, let me come with you.”
“All-all right.”
“And also on the raid.”
At that, Lily gives her head a hard shake. “No. No, I can’t let you do that, it’s too dangerous, and—”
“Lily, for pity’s sake, I fought in the trenches!”
“I know that, but this is a different scenario. We may take them by surprise, but they may be ready for us, shooting upon sight—”
Benjamin smacks his cap against the edge of her desk, and Lily jumps, more in surprise at his outburst than at the sound. She has come to see Benjamin as a gentle man. “Dammit, Lily! The other day, you told me you would not give up your work as a sheriff. That you love it. And I told you I’d been thinking about that—”
“About how it’s not suitable for a woman?” Lily regrets her snappish tone as soon as the words fly from her lips.
Benjamin sinks back in his chair. “Yes,” he says.
Though the simple answer is not surprising, it still stings. Lily looks down at her hands, rigidly clasped together on her desk.
“And how I need time to turn that over in my mind. See if I can reconsider my opinion.” Now Benjamin’s voice is soft as butter. “Clearly I’m going to have to, if we, well, if we can grow from friends to—to … Well, to more. But you need to let me into your life, your thoughts. Let me see what it’s like for you, being sheriff. Not just driving you to a church, or asking a few questions at a boardinghouse, or running an errand for you up to Columbus—”
Lily looks up, sharply.
“Oh, not that I minded that!” Benjamin amends quickly. “But I want to understand all of your life. Even the hardest parts. The bad and scary parts.…” He pauses, swallows hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down an enchanting sight, and Lily flushes a little. “Like you, I imagine, had to do with Daniel, when he was sheriff?”
“He tried to protect me from that. Shield me,” Lily says.
“Sounds like him. But how did that feel? To you? Between you—and him?”
It’s a question meant for her to consider—not answer in the moment. For now, Lily pushes it back and considers instead: Does she want Benjamin to come closer? To trust him with seeing her in the toughest situations, in her hardest moments?
Lily stands.
“Well, c’mon then. We need to get to the funeral. And prepare for the raid.”
* * *
In the Kinship Cemetery, the pastor speaks quickly to the small gathering, as if trying to outpace the weather with the few words he has to say over Luther’s coffin.
Lily is paying only the scantest of attention to the pastor. All part of her mind can think is, Thank God. Thank God that Luther’s internment is on the opposite edge of the cemetery from Daniel’s grave. Thank God it’s in a corner she will not have to walk past when she wishes to visit Daniel, or her brother, Roger, or her father.
The other part of her mind is thinking, Where the hell is Fiona?
Had she not seen the note Lily had passed on in Fiona’s glove?
Or had she shared the note with George—or been found out in her attempt to warn Lily of the industrial alcohol?
Lily sits in the back row of folding wood chairs—three rows, enough for twenty or so people, and the only ones at Luther’s funeral are the pastor, Elias, George, Abe, and one of George’s guards, who leans against the tent pole, languidly smoking a cigarette and staring at her as if she might jump up, knocking aside chairs, and shove Elias, George, and Abe into the grave after Luther.
Benjamin sits next to Lily, taking in the unfolding scene with the same distanced objectivity he’d had at Tom’s place, when Lily had interrogated her friends about the night of Luther’s murder.
Now Lily finds herself studying Elias, as she had at the Murphy farm, this man whom she had loved for acting as a father to Daniel and then betrayed them all so terribly. As Lily looks from Elias to Luther’s casket, she realizes that at one time she’d have felt spiteful relief at either Luther or Elias being gone.
If she feels anything beyond coldness, if she mourns anything, it’s her own lost sense of trusting others, of mostly assuming the best of others, her surprise when people acted in shocking ways. Now she’s no longer shocked, and she holds in reserve her assessments of other people until she has enough facts to make an educated judgment—and even then, each judgment is rendered with a reserve of doubt.
It makes her a better sheriff.
And it has cost her in other ways.
Maybe trusting Benjamin, letting him get a little closer to her—the real, raw her—is a way of healing?
As the pastor asks them all to bow their heads, Benjamin reaches for Lily’s hand. She lets him take it. She does not pull away.
Lily stands before the “Amen” finishes echoing under the tent. She starts to walk away—she’d come for Fiona, but Fiona is not here—but then she catches Elias’s gaze. He looks a broken man, but there’s something else. A pleading in his gaze, for her to come over to him.
She notes something else, too—both Abe and George intently watching him. He cannot, she realizes, come to her without raising suspicion.
And yet it feels as though her feet are frozen to the ground. Her legs quiver as she tries to take a step and can’t. It had been hard enough, seeing him at the Murphy farm, but walking over to him, of her own volition—no. She cannot.
Benjamin stands so close behind her that his coat brushes her back. He leans forward. “Lily,” he says softly, “do you need to talk to him?”
She nods ever so slightly.
“Then you can.”
He doesn’t push her. Doesn’t take her arm. He steps back, away from her, to give her space. And somehow, this is enough for her to go forward to Elias.
For a long moment, she stares up into the broken face of this man.
“I’m so sorry for your loss,” she says. She cannot bring herself to hug him, even as his eyes overflow. She holds out her hand for a handshake, and quickly he pulls his hand from his pocket and takes hers.
Lily feels a folded square of paper in his hand. She quickly moves her hand from his, puts her hands in her pockets as if for warmth as she sees Abe approaching out of the corner of her eye, but she does not look away from Elias.
He clears his throat, says, “Please give your best to your mother and the children, Lily.” Elias forces a wavery smile as Abe comes within hearing distance. “Tell your mama I miss her home-cooked meals, especially her canned apples.”
Canned apples?
He’s trying to tell her—Zebediah really is at the Murphy farm.
Lily keeps her expression carefully still. “Of course,” she says. “I will tell her.”
“Are you done visiting?” Abe gives Lily a tight smile. “Elias was not feeling well on the way over. I think we need to take him to see Dr. Goshen.”
Lily’s heart quickens at the realization that they will all soon learn that Dr. and Mrs. Goshen are in jail for Luther’s murder—and surmise that
they have revealed all they know about George’s plans to Lily. Her face remains frozen with expressionlessness as she turns her cold gaze onto Abe, who flinches a little.
She does allow herself the satisfaction of a slight quirk of a smile at that.
Then as she turns and walks away, Lily knows they will need to move quickly. The thick snow has treacherously turned to icy sleet.
FIONA, DECEMBER 1, 10:30 A.M.
Fiona sits in the parlor, trying to focus on reading The Turn of the Screw, which she’d borrowed from Elias. Words swim before her eyes. Not that it matters. She’s just trying to look normal for the guard, though he’s half asleep in the other chair, an occasional snore sneaking out before he jerks back awake.
Right on time, Zebediah comes running down the stairs.
“I gotta—I gotta go—I’m gonna be sick again—” He stumbles into the parlor, making extreme retching sounds. Under any other circumstance, Fiona might have been amused by wondering how often the boy playacted illness to get out of school.
The guard jumps up as Zebediah lurches toward him.
Fiona’s practically quivering with the desire to rush, but she, too, must playact. She takes her time to set aside her book, stands up slowly, smooths her skirt, and rolls her eyes. “Oh for pity’s sake. Come on, boy, I’ll help you out.”
At that, the guard looks at her warily. Fiona returns his gaze evenly. “Do you want to take him?” Zebediah clutches his stomach and gags. “Hope he makes it.”
The guard looks up the stairs. “Where’s the maid?”
Fiona shrugs. Klara is still in bed—the tainted tea had worked quickly on her. She starts to sit back down.
“This is woman’s work,” the guard says. “Get him outta here before he pukes on me.”
Fiona sighs. She grabs Zebediah’s arm. “Come on then, hurry up!”
They leave the parlor, hurry through the kitchen, pause on the back porch to grab her coat and one of the men’s coats, all the while Fiona cajoling him and Zebediah retching. They continue the act until they get to the outhouse. She quickly explains what she needs him to do next—if he wants to see his Mama and his sister again.
Dammit, there’s one guard coming around the corner. Now that he’s spotted them, he’ll watch until Zebediah goes inside the outhouse, comes back out, and they both return to the farmhouse. There will be no time to repeat the act. George and Abe will be on their way back, and if Elias has done his part, then Lily and whatever backup she has should be close behind.
Fiona tightens her grasp on Zebediah’s arm so much that he grimaces.
Through gritted teeth, she says, “Run.”
They’re all the way past the springhouse when the guard’s first shot rings out.
LILY, DECEMBER 1, 1:00 P.M.
The mix of snow and sleet brings misery down upon Lily and the others, gathered in the cemetery at the top of the hill overlooking the Murphy farm. Winter has cleared leaves from brush and trees so that if she looks the other way, through her binoculars, standing here next to the as-yet-unmarked grave of Henry Murphy, she has a sharp enough view of Kinship Road as it winds past the turnoff to the farm. If she zooms in, she can see three men outside the house, two by each other in the back, and one out front.
And across the holler in which the farm nests, on the next hill, about a half mile away, she notes a cabin. It looks abandoned, but a spiral of smoke rises from the chimney.
She sees, too, the gravel road that’s been laid across the back of the farm, dissecting it and connecting to a smaller county road that, two miles on, connects to a state route. Zooming in, she sees two automobiles pull off and several people—Jurgis, several of Barnaby’s men, one of Lily’s deputies—get out. Scanning, she doesn’t see any guards that George has posted at the rear of the road he’s created.
He’s not prepared for an ambush—leastways, not at the back of the property, the direction he’ll likely flee. He’s assumed that only he and his people know about his new road. Eventually, she guesses, he’ll have guards at either end, but for now, he has them just at the main entrance by Kinship Road.
Her visit with Nell Murphy, and coming to Henry’s funeral weeks ago, plus the two visits out here over the past few days have prepared her, though, along with Dr. Goshen revealing George’s plans.
Lily lowers the binoculars, turns to face Barnaby, Marvena, Benjamin, and two other men. She hands the binoculars to Benjamin, and he immediately scans the Murphy farm.
“All right, our primary goal is to get George to realize he’s outnumbered, and to retrieve Zebediah and Colter DeHaven—”
“Our goal is to arrest George and bring him in,” Barnaby interrupts. “Remember, Lily, our conversation with Mabel—”
“Shut up!” Marvena snaps, glaring at him.
“Now, ma’am—”
“What?” Marvena says. “I don’t have to follow you all’s rules, or whatever. And this is Lily’s plan, so you might oughta shut up.”
Even as tiny as she is, and with her hat slouched ridiculously over her eyes, Marvena cuts an intimidating figure, standing with her booted feet apart, and holding a shotgun in a way that shows she’s quite comfortable with it.
Lily is weary—physically and emotionally. The past week has been relentless. And yet here is her friend, just released after Lily had to arrest her, coming to her defense. The wind stings her eyes, makes watery eyes inevitable, and Lily is glad for this cover for her emotion.
Marvena’s support builds her up, and Lily says firmly, “Special Agent Sloan makes a good point—we want to shut down Vogel, preferably with no one getting hurt, and also retrieve the boy and agent.” An image of Ruth’s sweet, sorrowful face flashes before Lily. She cannot bear to bring that family more bad news. “We need to sweep over the farm before George returns. Take the three guards by surprise, hopefully with no gunfire. Search the house, grab the boy and agent. We’ll need to be careful of Abe—he’s ruthless when protecting George—”
“Lily!” Benjamin looks away from the binoculars, alarm marking his expression. “There’s a man and woman coming down the hill to the farm.” He points to the hill with the cabin and passes the binoculars to Lily.
She grabs them, peers down: there’s a man in a suit, with a gun pressed to Fiona’s head, coming into the yard behind the house. Lily shoves the binoculars at Barnaby. “That your man? DeHaven?”
Barnaby quickly looks, then stares up at Lily, shock registering in his expression. “Yes.”
“Then why the hell is he holding Fiona hostage?”
“I have no idea.”
Lily grabs the binoculars back, staring, trying to make sense of this. Has DeHaven been working for George all along? But why hold a gun to Fiona’s head? Then movement catches her eye to the north, along the gravel road. Maybe a deer—but no. It’s a figure, male. She zooms as much as she can. Oh God. It’s Zebediah Harkins. He’s running—
Another movement—an automobile, coming in through the front entrance. It must be George and Abe.
Lily looks up. “We have a hostage situation and a runaway—the boy.” She looks at Marvena. “You’re with me. We must stop Zebediah running out the back—he doesn’t know what he’s running into, and several of the men at the back don’t know him. Barnaby, you get down there, talk to your agent, figure out what the hell is going on, and see if you can get Fiona. Everyone else, cover Barnaby, but don’t fire unless you must. Barnaby! For God’s sake, take your bullhorn!” He’d started off without it.
Benjamin gives Lily an appreciative smile, then follows the other men.
“You’re the faster runner,” Lily says to Marvena. “You get to the men at the back, and I’ll find Zebediah.”
FIONA, DECEMBER 1, 1:30 P.M.
Fiona shivers, wishing she had her coat, but they’d left their coats in the cabin, to make their ruse look more believable. Colter shoves his revolver into the back of her head, and Fiona stumbles forward. He’s holding her wrists with one hand, and she tries to twist
her hands, irritated. He’s recovered well and is stronger than he looks, but must he hold her hands so hard to make this look believable? They stop by the woodshop, Fiona tripping into the pile of scrap wood, a jagged end of a piece ripping through her dress and into her shin, and then she stumbles forward again, toward the one confused guard staring at them. Sure, his gun is drawn, but—ah.
There’s George’s automobile, coming down the lane, screeching to a halt. Perfect timing. Except—the doors open, and out comes George and Abe … and Elias.
Elias is not dead. She’d thought George and Abe would dispose of him—
Abe pulls out his own gun, aims it at Colter and Fiona.
“I—I—want your automobile. Give it to me and she won’t get hurt,” Colter says.
And … Come on, remember your lines, Fiona thinks.
“And she has to come with me,” Colter adds. “Collateral.”
“No,” George says. “She stays here.”
Fiona looks at him, arranges a mix of fear and gratitude on her face. Except … he looks perfectly calm. And he is staring at her coldly. He lights a cigarette.
Fiona’s gaze clicks over to Elias. Oh God—what had he told them? From the mix of sorrow and exhaustion and anger on his face—everything.
“Seems we need Elias after all,” George is saying. “Found out that Dr. Goshen is in jail as accessory to his wife in the murder of Luther.” He flicks his ash into the snow. “Good thing we found out. You see, my dear, Elias here—when he realized our plans for him, and that you’d heard them last night but didn’t warn him—confessed all.”
Fiona’s heart pounds. She looks at Elias. All? Even Zebediah, ready to set the fuse to the dynamite as George’s automobile approached?
“Darling, I—I’m so sorry; the boy just ran away earlier when I took him outside because he was sick, and I followed and then this man grabbed me, and I don’t know who—”
“He’s a revenuer,” George says. “The one Luther was supposed to simply pay off. But you know that. You know because you’ve been tending to him for the past week, haven’t you.”
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