"This adjustment."
She traced the figures.
"It isn't interest. It isn't a penalty. It's an invented amount."
He studied her.
"How can you tell?"
"Because Nathaniel used to make me copy the household ledgers when his secretary was absent."
She turned another page.
"And I've seen these calculations before."
Elias grew still.
"Where?"
Clara swallowed.
"In Chicago."
She continued examining the figures.
Now she recognized another pattern.
Debts passed from one holding company to another.
Each transfer raised the recorded balance.
The property owner received a demand for payment from a new lender.
By the time anyone questioned the original amount, the loan had changed hands several times.
Clara's pulse quickened.
"This isn't banking."
Elias watched her.
"What is it?"
She looked up.
"It's a machine for taking property."
For the first time since meeting her, Elias seemed genuinely surprised.
Then he nodded slowly.
"That's what Jonah said."
Clara returned her attention to the ledger.
"Your brother discovered this?"
"Enough to become dangerous."
"What happened?"
Elias looked toward the fire.
"His surveying crew was ordered to blast a new passage near the northern ridge. Jonah argued the rock was unstable."
He paused.
"The foreman went ahead anyway."
Clara waited.
"Part of the mountain came down."
Her eyes softened.
"Oh, Elias."
He stared at the floor.
"Three men died."
"Jonah?"
He nodded.
Clara reached across the table.
He looked at her hand.
She stopped before touching him.
"May I?"
He hesitated.
Then placed his enormous hand beneath hers.
Clara held it gently.
"I'm sorry."
Elias looked down.
For several moments, he did not speak.
Then he continued.
"Before he died, Jonah sent me that ledger. Said if anything happened, I was to take it to someone outside the company."
Clara looked toward the book.
"Why didn't you?"
"I tried."
"What happened?"
"Two men came looking for me before I reached the county seat."
She stared.
"Who?"
"Company guards."
"Did they threaten you?"
Elias gave a humorless smile.
"They made themselves plain."
Clara looked at his left eyebrow.
The scar.
She suddenly understood.
"Is that how you got hurt?"
He nodded once.
"One of them used the butt of a rifle."
She tightened her fingers around his hand.
"And you survived."
"Yes."
"How?"
His expression became hard.
"I knew the mountain better than they did."
Silence settled between them.
Clara looked again at Nathaniel's signature.
The man she had married.
The man who attended church in expensive coats and donated money to children's hospitals.