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“Any word?” he asked.

“Not from the crossing.”

“Then what have you got in that book?”

“Things the women remembered.”

“About the silver tooth?”

Eden drew the chair closer, though she left room between it and his bed. “Frank Crowley. Hannah King’s husband remembered him hiring horses—or trying to. Rose remembered him buying peppermint and asking about the old mill road.”

“That silver-toothed devil.”

“Izzy recognized his laugh.”

Jesse shut his eye.

He could hear that laugh, cheerful as a man winning a hand of cards. He could hear the piano beneath it, Izzy carrying on with the tune because she’d understood his warning.

“Is she all right?”

“She spoke when she was ready. Nobody forced her.”

“Good.”

“Jesse, there’s something else.”

He opened his eye. Eden had her pencil in hand but hadn’t put it to paper.

“What?”

“Izzy remembered Crowley warning the other men not to cause trouble in the front room. He said Rusk wouldn’t pay for dead girls.”

The words struck something lose.

Dead girls.

A hallway. Lamp smoke. The sting of tobacco under peppermint.

Jesse gripped the blanket with his left hand.

“Another man answered him.”

Eden held still. “You remember what he said?”

“Dead men make better warnings.”

The hallway came back in pieces. A boot polished enough to catch the light. Peter’s voice from the card table. A hand against Jesse’s shoulder, shoving him away from the back door.

“Wait.” Jesse pressed his fingers to his temple.

“You don’t have to tell me tonight.”

“They knew who I was.”

Eden’s pencil remained poised over the page.

“Crowley called me the Pickett boy.” Jesse could hear it now, spoken with contempt. “Told the others not to kill me yet.”