Samuel turned another page.
Man leaves before sunrise.
Woman alone most afternoons.
She stepped backward.
"Samuel."
He closed the notebook.
His jaw tightened.
For several moments, he said nothing.
Then he turned toward her.
"No one is going to hurt you."
Clara looked at the hidden chamber.
"Whoever wrote that has been watching us."
"I know."
"For weeks."
"I know."
Her voice broke.
"Even when I thought I was alone."
Samuel crossed the room and took her hands.
"Look at me."
She did.
"I promise you, Clara, we're going to get to the bottom of this."
She searched his face.
"And if it's something terrible?"
He looked toward the strange door.
"Then we'll face it together."
The chest was locked.
Samuel tried his father's black key.
It did not fit.
Clara examined the iron hinges.
One had recently been repaired.
A thin line of bright metal showed where someone had replaced a pin.
Samuel took the poker and carefully worked the hinge loose.
After several minutes, the lid shifted.
He lifted it.
Inside were bundles of yellowed papers, a small leather pouch, two tarnished silver coins, and a thick ledger bound with faded red thread.
Clara leaned closer.
Samuel opened the ledger.
The first entries dated back almost thirty years.
At the top of the first page were three names.
Gideon Thorne.
Nathaniel Bennett.
Edgar Vale.
Clara stopped moving.
Her maiden name was Bennett.
Her father's name had been Nathaniel Bennett.
She pointed toward the page.
"Samuel."
He looked up.
"That's my father."
Samuel stared.
Then he turned the page.
The ledger contained figures, dates, and references to copper shipments from an unregistered mine.
There were payments to men whose names Samuel recognized from Blackwood.
There were receipts for blasting powder.
And there were repeated entries describing something called the Northern Claim.
Clara read slowly.
One entry listed an enormous shipment of copper ore.
Another recorded a payment to the county assessor.
Another mentioned a sealed tunnel.
Then Samuel found a note written in a different hand.
The surveyor knows about the second seam. We cannot allow him to register the claim.
Beneath it was a date.
March 18, 1861.
Clara felt a chill.
"That was the year before you were born."
Samuel nodded.
He turned another page.
A folded letter slipped free.
It had been addressed to Gideon Thorne.
The signature at the bottom belonged to Clara's father.
Samuel read aloud.
"If the surveyor speaks, the entire arrangement will be exposed. The second entrance must remain closed until we settle the matter. No witnesses. No exceptions."
He lowered the paper.
Clara stared at the signature.
She knew her father's handwriting.
The same sharp letters.
The same heavy downward strokes.
The same elaborate flourish beneath the final word.
There was no mistaking it.
"My father helped them."