asked.
Rosalie looked at him.
“You answer for it.”
Silas laughed.
“To whom?”
“The sheriff.”
“You have a drunken man’s story and old papers.”
“We have your ledger.”
“It proves a failed surgery.”
“The journal?”
Silas looked toward Merrick.
Merrick reached into his coat.
Silas’s eyes widened.
Merrick placed a small leather-bound book on the table.
“I took it months ago.”
Silas lunged.
Gideon caught him again.
Merrick opened the journal.
Several pages contained Silas’s own handwriting.
The shooting.
The ricochet.
The operation.
His fear of prosecution.
Eleanor’s discovery.
Then one final entry written the night after Eleanor’s death.
Merrick read aloud.
“I could have called Pritchard.
I did not.
By the time Rosalie found us, Eleanor had stopped breathing.
God forgive what fear makes a man choose.”
Rosalie covered her mouth.
Silas sagged in Gideon’s grip.
Nobody spoke for a long time.
Then Rosalie took the journal.
“No,” she
