Page 94 of The Promise
"Right, he said he'd struck it rich and that he'd be wiring the money for me and Mary to come and join him."
"And you never heard from him again?"
She lowered her head, staring at her hands on the table. "No."
"Further support for the theory that he ran away with the silver and our mother." Michael rubbed a weary hand across his face.
"Look, Michael, I can't give you any proof. But I know for certain, in here," she pointed to her heart, "that my Zach never run off with your ma."
"I'm not trying to hurt you, Loralee, but I don't think you're facing facts."
"Michael, you don't have children," she said, quietly, her face softening at the thought. "If you did, you'd know that even if Zach had decided to leave me for your ma, he could never have left Mary. I'm telling you, if my husband were alive, he'd have contacted me. If not because he loved me—and he did—then because he loved our Mary."
"Our mother left us." The pain in Michael's face made Cara ache with the need to comfort him.
"Maybe she didn't." Patrick met his brother's gaze with a steely-eyed certainty.
Michael ran a hand through his hair. "This is insane. Now you want me to believe that my mother and the mule—Loralee's husband—are dead?"
"It's not impossible, Michael." Cara spoke tentatively, unsure of his reaction.
"The hell it's?—"
"Hear me out." She covered his hand with hers. "What if there were an accident? You said yourself the roads are bad. And you said yourself how dangerous a muleskinner's job could be. A single flick of the whip often controlled the fate of the wagon, right?"
Patrick nodded enthusiastically. "Hell yeah, I've seen them practically make a curve on two wheels and still wind up with cargo and driver in one piece."
Cara met Michael's gaze. "The point is, maybe Zach and Rose didn't make it down the mountain. Maybe Amos Striker found them and the silver."
A faint glimmer of hope dawned in Michael's eyes.
"Maybe they had a little help meeting their maker." Patrick's voice was sharp.
"Amos Striker." Loralee said the name as if it were poison.
"But what about the stagecoach? The station master told us they'd boarded the stage at Antelope Springs." Michael looked at his brother.
"Maybe it was a set up." The two men turned to look at Cara. "Well, it's possible. Say Amos did find them and…"
"And killed them." Patrick finished for her.
"Right. Well, it would follow that if anyone found them, there would be questions about the silver. So he could have arranged for it to look like they ran away. It wouldn't have taken much."
Loralee leaned forward caught up in the idea. "And then he would have hidden the silver. There's no way it could have turned up around here all at once."
Cara nodded. "So all he had to do was stash the silver somewhere."
"But he wouldn't have hidden it in the Promise. We were still living up there."
Cara met Michael's skeptical gaze. "Maybe he moved it there later. I mean you have to admit there's a certain touch of brilliance to hiding it right under your noses."
Patrick nodded in agreement.
Michael wasn't so easy to convince. "And what about the bodies."
"Hell, Michael, you know as well as I do that a body doesn't last long out here. Between the wild animals and the weather there usually isn't much left." Patrick waved his hands, emphasizing his words.
Loralee winced and Cara laid a soothing hand on her arm.
