The lock clicked.
The door opened.
The smell hit them first.
Blood.
Old blood.
Cole raised his lantern.
The room was filled with boxes.
Documents.
Photographs.
Weapons.
And dozens of names written on a wall.
Some had red lines through them.
Others had dates.
Rose covered her mouth.
“Oh God.”
Anna walked toward the wall.
Her father had kept records.
Every person who had opposed him.
Every judge.
Every rancher.
Every businessman.
Every witness.
Some had disappeared.
Some had died.
Some had been forced to sell their land.
And beneath them all was a final list.
The names of families who had resisted.
Cole found his father's name.
His breath caught.
Nathan Tanner.
Next to it was a date.
Twenty years earlier.
Cole stared.
His father had died in a ranch accident.
At least, that was what Cole had always believed.
He turned toward Anna.
“My father.”
Anna looked at the wall.
Then at Cole.
“I didn't know.”
Cole's voice was barely audible.
“Neither did I.”
Rose found another document.
“Cole.”
He turned.
She handed it to him.
It was a payment record.
A payment made twenty years earlier.
To the man who had investigated Nathan Tanner's death.
The payment had come from Augustus Whitmore.
Cole felt something inside him break.
His father had not died accidentally.
He had been murdered.
And the man responsible had just sent eight armed men to kill Cole.
Anna stepped closer.
“I'm sorry.”
Cole stared at the document.
Then he folded it.
“Don't be.”
He looked at the wall.
“Help me finish this.”
The hidden room contained more than evidence.
It contained a secret that changed everything.
At the bottom of a metal chest, Anna found a bundle of letters.
They were written by her mother.
Her mother had supposedly died when the girls were children.
But the letters had been written years after her supposed death.
Anna opened one.
Her hands began shaking.
“She's alive.”
Rose stared.
“What?”
“Our mother.”
Lily grabbed the letter.
“She says Father locked her away because she knew about the accounts.”
Cole frowned.
“Where is she?”
Anna read the last line.
“She says she's being held at the old monastery.”
Cole knew the place.
It was forty miles north.
Abandoned.
Remote.
And controlled by Whitmore.
Rose looked at the evidence.
Then at her sisters.
“We can't leave her.”
Cole shook his head.
“Then we don't.”
They packed everything.
But before they could leave, footsteps sounded above them.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Someone was coming down the stairs.
Cole extinguished the lantern.
The door opened.
A voice spoke.
“I wondered how long it would take.”
Augustus Whitmore stepped into the room.
He was sixty-one.
Tall.
Silver-haired.
Perfectly dressed.
He held a pistol.
Behind him stood Mason Pike and six armed men.
Anna stepped forward.
“Father.”
Augustus looked at his daughters.
“You have caused me considerable trouble.”
Rose laughed.
“You murdered people.”
His expression remained calm.
“People die.”
Lily cried.
“You killed Mother.”
Augustus looked at her.
“No.”
Anna stared.
“Then where is she?”
He smiled.
“She was never where you thought.”
Cole raised his gun.
Augustus looked at him.
“Cole Tanner.”
“You know my name.”
“I knew your father.”
Cole's eyes hardened.