“What things?”
Victor answered for him.
“Locks.”
Eleanor's stomach dropped.
Caleb's voice was barely audible.
“I didn't know.”
Victor laughed.
“You always say that.”
Caleb's eyes flashed.
“I didn't know what you were doing.”
“Not at first.”
The words struck harder than a gunshot.
Eleanor stepped backward.
“You helped him?”
Caleb swallowed.
“I built locks for his warehouses.”
“Warehouses?”
“Cellars. Storage rooms.”
Victor corrected him.
“Prisons.”
Eleanor looked at the man who had just freed her.
The coat around her shoulders suddenly felt unbearably heavy.
“How many?”
Caleb closed his eyes.
“I don't know.”
Victor smiled.
“That's a lie.”
Caleb looked at him.
“I stopped counting.”
The truth settled between them.
Eleanor's fear became anger.
“You knew.”
Caleb's voice broke.
“I knew eventually.”
“And you stayed?”
“I tried to leave.”
“But you stayed.”
“Yes.”
Victor's smile disappeared.
“Enough.”
He reached beneath his coat.
Caleb fired.
The shot exploded through the barn.
Victor staggered.
At the same instant, his own pistol fired.
Caleb jerked sideways.
Blood appeared beneath his ribs.
Eleanor screamed.
Victor fell against the doorway.
For several seconds, everything was still.
Then Victor laughed.
“You always were slow.”
Caleb raised his gun again.
Victor reached for his weapon.
Eleanor saw it.
She saw Caleb bleeding.
She saw Victor's hand.
She saw the chain lying on the floor.
And something inside her snapped.
She grabbed it.
The iron links were heavy.
She swung.
The chain struck Victor's wrist.
His weapon fell.
He screamed.
Eleanor swung again.
This time the chain caught his shoulder.
He collapsed.
Caleb stared at her.
She stared back.
Victor tried to crawl away.
“You,” he gasped.
Eleanor stepped toward him.
“You told me nobody was coming.”
Victor looked up.
She tightened her grip around the chain.
“You were wrong.”
Before she could do anything else, voices thundered outside.
Sheriff.
Deputies.
Men rushed into the barn.
Weapons raised.
Victor was dragged away.
But the sheriff stopped when he saw Eleanor.
His expression changed.
“Mara?”
Eleanor looked at him.
The sheriff slowly removed his hat.
“No.”
He stared at her face.
“Not Mara.”
He reached inside his coat.
Then he produced a folded paper.
A missing-person poster.
The paper was old.
Yellowed.
Water damaged.
But the photograph was unmistakable.
A little girl with red hair.
Green eyes.
A small scar near her left eyebrow.
Eleanor stared.
The name beneath the photograph was:
Eleanor Whitcombe.
She shook her head.
“No.”
The sheriff's voice softened.
“You disappeared fifteen years ago.”
“My parents?”
“Your father never stopped looking.”
The barn seemed to spin.
Images appeared in her mind.
A white house.
A piano.
A rose garden.
A man's hands lifting her onto his shoulders.
A woman laughing.
Then darkness.
A cloth.
A smell.
Victor.
She fell to her knees.
Caleb tried to move toward her.
She pushed him away.
“You knew.”
He stopped.
“I found the poster yesterday.”
“Yesterday?”
“Yes.”
“So before you came for me?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because I didn't know if I could trust the information.”
“That isn't an answer.”
Caleb looked at Victor being dragged toward the deputies.