Nola looked toward him.
“Still want to shoot him?”
“Yes.”
“So do I.”
He stared.
“Really?”
“I contain multitudes.”
For the first time that morning, he laughed.
Brief.
Necessary.
Then:
“Tomorrow?”
“If Amos returns.”
“And if he doesn’t?”
Nola looked toward the papers Crow had left for review.
“Then we find another way.”
Neither said what both knew.
Tomorrow had become a cliff edge.
Amos returned at dusk.
Horse lathered.
Hat missing.
One boot muddy to the knee.
He nearly fell while dismounting.
Garrick caught him.
“Easy.”
Amos shoved a folded packet into his chest.
“Merritt.”
Nola ran from the porch.
“Did he test it?”
“Best he could.”
“What is it?”
Amos looked toward the children watching from the doorway.
“Not here.”
Inside the barn, Garrick opened Dr. Abel Merritt’s letter.
The retired surgeon had been careful.
He could not identify every ingredient without a proper laboratory.
But the tonic contained an antimonial metallic preparation in a concentration he described as “dangerously inconsistent with legitimate prolonged treatment.”
Repeated exposure could cause violent stomach distress, weakness, tremors, irregular heartbeat, progressive wasting, and death.
Nola read the symptoms twice.
Mae.
Every line.
Weston.
The beginning of the same path.
Garrick reached the bottom.
Merritt had added:
I cannot state from this test alone that the preparation killed Mrs. Hale. I can state that I would not knowingly administer this mixture to any patient, child or adult, in the manner described.
Garrick lowered the letter.
His face became completely empty.
That frightened Nola more than rage.
Then he turned and punched the barn wall.
Once.
Twice.
She grabbed his arm.
“Stop.”
He tore free.
“She begged me.”
“Garrick.”
“I held her nose once because she wouldn’t swallow.”
Nola’s heart broke.
“I told her the doctor knew better.”
He punched the wall again.
Blood appeared across his knuckles.
Nola slapped him.
Hard.
The sound echoed off the barn rafters.
Garrick froze.
Amos froze.
Nola’s own hand burned.
“Say you killed her again and I will hit you twice as hard.”
Garrick stared.
Tears spilled down his face.
“I gave it to her.”
“Because a doctor told you it would save her.”
“I forced—”
“Because you thought refusal meant death.”
“You were wrong.”
“That does not make you malicious.”
His chest heaved.
Nola stepped closer.
“You do not get to steal guilt from the people who earned it.”
Garrick looked toward her.
She pointed at the letter.
“If Wren knowingly poisoned Mae, that guilt belongs to Wren.”
“If Crow paid him, some belongs to Crow.”
“If Pike protected them, some belongs to Pike.”
“Your grief already took enough.”