His face went white.
“You…”
Evelyn lowered the veil.
“Yes.”
Whitcomb whispered:
“You were supposed to be dead.”
THE FOUR WHO VANISHED
Thomas Reed found Evelyn waiting outside the courthouse that night.
Rain had returned.
She stood beneath the porch roof.
“You need to tell me everything,” he said.
“I will.”
“Starting with how the mayor knows you were supposed to be dead.”
Evelyn looked toward the dark street.
“I was eighteen when Jonathan disappeared.”
Thomas said nothing.
“My parents died when I was twelve. Jonathan raised me. He worked wherever he could. Ranches. Mines. Freight stations.”
She paused.
“He discovered something.”
“What?”
“People were disappearing from Mercy Hollow.”
Thomas frowned.
“How many?”
“Four.”
“Names?”
“Jonathan Vale. Daniel Cross. Samuel Harper. And Clara Bell.”
Thomas went still.
“Clara Bell?”
“Yes.”
“Sheriff Bell's daughter?”
“Yes.”
“She's been listed as missing for sixteen years.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Her disappearance happened three days before Jonathan's.”
Thomas rubbed his jaw.
“What did Jonathan discover?”
“A ledger.”
“What kind?”
“Land transfers.”
Thomas understood.
Mercy Hollow had grown because ranchers had settled around the river.
Land was valuable.
Especially water rights.
“If someone wanted land…”
“They needed frightened owners,” Evelyn finished.
Thomas stared at her.
“Were people being forced off their property?”
“Yes.”
“And Jonathan found proof?”
“He found a ledger showing that several landowners had signed over their property after they supposedly left town.”
Thomas's voice became quiet.
“Who owned the land afterward?”
Evelyn looked directly at him.
“Charles Whitcomb.”
Thomas exhaled.
The mayor.
For sixteen years.
They searched the courthouse records until midnight.
Thomas found seven suspicious transfers.
Every one involved the same witnesses.
Every one had been approved by the same county clerk.
Every one eventually ended with land belonging to Whitcomb.
But there was something stranger.
A final entry.
Blackwater Ridge.
A parcel of land transferred to a company that no longer existed.
“Vale Mining and Freight,” Thomas read.
“That's Jonathan's.”
“Yes.”
Thomas stared at the document.
“Your brother owned this?”
“He did.”
“What happened to it?”
“He disappeared.”
Thomas looked up.
“Then the land was taken.”
Evelyn nodded.
“Exactly.”
They went to Blackwater Ridge the next morning.
The cliff was almost twenty miles from town.
The path was steep.
Wind screamed between the rocks.
At the edge, Thomas found the place where Jonathan's body had supposedly fallen.
There were no footprints.
No broken branches.
No signs of a struggle.
But Evelyn walked farther.
She stopped beside a large stone.
“Here.”
Thomas looked down.
A rusted iron box had been buried beneath the dirt.
Inside were papers.
Letters.
A photograph.
And a small brass key.
Thomas unfolded the photograph.
Four people stood outside a barn.
Jonathan Vale.
Daniel Cross.
Samuel Harper.
Clara Bell.
They were smiling.
On the back of the photograph someone had written:
If anything happens to us, look beneath the old church.
Thomas stared at Evelyn.
“The old church burned twelve years ago.”
“I know.”
“Then whatever was beneath it may be gone.”
“Maybe.”
She closed the box.
“But Jonathan left one more clue.”
“What?”
Evelyn pointed toward the valley.
“There is another church.”
Thomas followed her gaze.
An abandoned stone chapel stood beyond the trees.
He had never seen it before.
They reached the chapel near sunset.
The doors were locked.
Thomas broke the chain.
Inside, dust covered the pews.
A broken cross hung above the altar.
They searched the floor.
Nothing.
Then Evelyn noticed a loose stone.
Thomas pulled it aside.
A narrow staircase descended into darkness.
They lit a lantern.
Below the church was a cellar.
And inside that cellar were shelves.
Boxes.
Dozens of them.
Thomas opened the first.
Land deeds.
The second.
Payment records.
The third.
Names.
People who had disappeared.
Evelyn covered her mouth.
There were more than four.
Twenty-three names.
Maybe more.
At the bottom of the final box was a journal.
Jonathan's handwriting.
Evelyn held it against her chest.
“He knew,” she whispered.
Thomas looked around.
“Knew what?”
She opened the first page.
Her brother had written only one sentence.
The people of Mercy Hollow are not being driven away. They are being erased.
A floorboard creaked above them.
Thomas immediately extinguished the lantern.
Someone was inside the chapel.
Then came a voice.
“Find them.”
Another voice answered.
“They're down there.”
Thomas reached for his revolver.
Evelyn whispered:
“How many?”
He listened.
“Three.”
A gunshot shattered the silence.
THE HOUSE OF ASHES
Thomas grabbed Evelyn's hand.