He took a step closer. He should probably care more about the bribes, but at the moment, he just wanted to keep her safe. “How soon can you go?”
She pressed her lips together. “A week from today? Does that work? I... I think I should do as you said and try to figure out the money part after I’m somewhere safe.”
He was glad to hear it, though a week felt like an unreasonably long time. Each day she lingered increased the likelihood her father would find out what she was up to, but he’d make it work. “I’ll make the arrangements. We’ll go to Seattle and from there take a train to Washington, DC.” He didn’t care how badly he needed to strong-arm Alexei. He’d make sure they had a ship available to leave that night, which would get them away from Sitka hours before anyone realized she was missing.
“Thank you,” she whispered, turning back to the books, her hand still clutching the pendant in a way that made him frown.
Had something happened last night? What wasn’t she telling him?
And what if she was in more danger now than she had been before?
She still hadn’t foundanything.
Rosalind wandered into the library of her father’s mansion, her neck aching from spending the past two hours searching his study. Normally she wouldn’t be able to search it in the evening, but both her father and Leeland, along with her uncle, had beeninvited to a meeting at the hotel with the owner of a shipping company from San Francisco. Snow had started falling shortly after they’d left, and she didn’t know whether that would keep them away longer or cause them to head home earlier, or if it wouldn’t affect things one way or the other.
She still hadn’t found any record of her father bribing the Marshal—or anyone else—over the years. She knew he had a ledger of transactions somewhere, but she’d told Yuri that she would leave Sitka a week from today.
What if she didn’t find the evidence before then? Was she supposed to leave without any proof of her father’s criminal activity? How many more people would her father hurt if she couldn’t find evidence that would land him in prison?
She let the library door fall shut behind her, then leaned her weight against it and tilted her head toward the ceiling.Dear God, please help me find evidence before I leave.
But no answer seemed to come. The only thing that greeted her was the ticking of the mantle clock and the low crackle of the fire. She sighed and crossed to the table near the window where she’d left her knitting, then sat down and stared at the yarn.
There had to be proof of the bribes somewhere. It wasn’t as though her father was an honest man. If he was going to forge numbers and bribe officials and steal land from native communities, there had to be a record of it somewhere.
Dear Father, what am I missing?
She fingered the scarf she’d been working on but didn’t pick up her knitting needles.
Maybe she’d be better off sorting books for the town library. Father had said they could donate some of the older books they no longer used, but if she didn’t get things donated before she left, the books would probably never make it to the library.
At the very least, it would give her something to think about besides how big of a failure she was.
She stood and crossed to the tall bookshelf nearest the door. Most of the titles were older. There was a smattering of everything—travelogues, religious commentaries, and even a few well-worn novels from when her mother had been her age. She started pulling books from the top shelf, careful to check the condition before stacking a few into a pile on the floor.
She worked her way down the shelf, selecting books that might be of interest to others, but that she hadn’t read in several years and her father didn’t use for business. When she reached the lowest shelf, she crouched down, the spines of the books all but invisible in the shadows.
She pulled out a dusty copy ofThe Marble Faun, then flipped it open before closing it and setting it back on the shelf. Her father wouldn’t want her to give away a Hawthorne novel.
When she went to slide the book back into its slot, it wouldn’t go all the way in, almost as though something stopped it. She never would have noticed how the spine stuck out had she not been holding the book, but now that she knew how deep the shelf was, its position on the shelf seemed odd.
The book beside it seemed to stick out a bit more than necessary too, and the one beside that. Had something gotten caught behind them?
She pulled the trio of books out and felt behind them. A warped section of wall met her hand, or maybe it was careless patching from years ago.
Wait. It didn’t seem like the wall was warped at all. It was every bit as smooth as the shelves themselves. It was almost as though a wooden panel had been deliberately placed at the back. She pulled on the board, wriggling it backward and forward until it gave way. Two small leather-bound books rested flush against the wall behind it.
She pulled them out, her pulse quickening and blood rushing in her ears. The books looked similar to the ledgers in her father’s study. Had she just found what she’d been looking for?
Please, Father, help these be what I need.
She undid the clasp on the first ledger and flipped it open.
Her blood turned cold.
These were the seal-harvest totals from last summer. The date was written clearly on the top of the page. The trouble was, the brief summary of seals harvested didn’t match the US government quota. Everyone knew the Alaska Commercial Company had the ability to kill two hundred thousand seals per year, a number scientists had said wouldn’t damage the population. The number was hardly a secret. But the summary on the first page of the ledger made it look like the ACC had killed over three hundred thousand seals.
She flipped to the next page, where the number of seals killed was meticulously tallied and broken down by date, location, and kill crew.
