lied, or only missed? Either way, he’d survived. The fact was like a bullet in his own bruised chest, and Tom was desperate to contain his worry and amazement.
“Did you send Molly a letter?” Pitt said to Abigail.
“No,” she replied, frowning at the question.
“Bess said Molly had a letter in the taproom. She recognized the hand and said it came from you.”
“What did it say?”
“Bess didn’t know. I suppose you have a simple explanation for it all,” Pitt said to Tom.
Tom shook his head. They seemed to grow aware that he was hesitant to speak—indifferent to the evidence that pointed to his innocence.
“Ichabod told us one of the Maimers’ horses has been stolen,” Abigail said. “Something in the letter must have scared her off.”
“Where would she have gone?” Benjamin asked Tom.
“Her husband lives in Grayport,” Pitt declared. “His name is Jacob Smith. I’m told that he’s a man of influence and means.”
He wouldn’t have looked more victorious if Molly had appeared, summoned by his words, in a great plume of smoke. His statement left the Knoxes visibly astonished.
“The man I followed was a banker named Alexander Bole. He clammed up tight on learning I was sheriff—he’s a man of crooked business, unquestionably crooked. I threatened to investigate his dealings and he talked. Her name is Molly Smith. Her husband,” Pitt said, giving the word extra relish and directing it at Tom, “is a translator, arbitrator, man of private counsel—quite the jack of all trades. A fishy character, I think.”
“Then of course it must be him,” Abigail said. “He comes to Root and finds his wife living here with Tom. You might have told us sooner!”
Pitt’s smirk disappeared. He seemed to recognize he’d given Tom a plausible defense, one that he himself was starting to believe. Benjamin, however, knew his friend too well and scrutinized Tom, sensing there was more—hidden facts that left the rest of them in ignorance and doubt.
“We have to find Molly,” Abigail decided. “Send a rider in each direction on the road and bring her back.”
“No,” Tom said, so emphatically that Abigail’s mouth snapped shut.
The blood-drop flavor had returned to his tongue, fainter than before but more perceptibly a poison. His body felt depleted and his heart felt cold, but the haze had burned away and left his mind clear as air.
“I need to talk to you alone,” Tom said to Pitt.
He looked at Abigail hard, willing her to go and putting so much significance and firmness in his gaze, he overcame her poise and made her nervous, almost fearful. Benjamin nodded to his wife and turned around to leave, having come as a physician in possession of his strength but now succumbing to the weakness of a patient out of bed. With a sniff of disapproval and a quick, sharp sigh, Abigail knocked and Unger opened the door.
“Thank you,” Tom said, “for coming here to help. Get yourselves home or wait downstairs. Unger—you, too. Empty out the hall and let us talk in private.”
Abigail hardened at the implication of eavesdropping, but after a final look at Tom she led her husband down the stairs.
Unger hesitated, waiting for the sheriff to instruct him. Pitt paused, too, until it seemed his curiosity outweighed his reservations and he said, “I’ll be fine. Lock us in and wait in the taproom.”
Unger eagerly obeyed, his cannonball shoulders sagging in relief. He shut the door and left the hall, using his musket as a walking stick. They listened to it clacking as he tromped downstairs, and then the room fell silent and the men stood alone.
Pitt took a pistol from the pocket of his coat.
“There’s a paper in my stocking,” Tom said. “I’m going to get it.”
He stooped to roll his stocking down before he had permission, stood back up, and held the message out between them. Pitt stretched his arm and took it with his fingertips, apparently afraid the paper was a trick and Tom would try to jump him if he took a step forward. He read the note in three quick glances with a frown.
“The man with the chipped tooth who talked to Abigail,” Tom said. “His name is Nicholas. He isn’t Molly’s husband. He’s her brother.”
He told Pitt everything that Molly had divulged. The siblings new to Grayport. Nicholas’s office. John Summer, Molly’s pregnancy, the cabin, and the shot. He didn’t mention Molly’s real last name or General Bell, which were secrets, even now, Pitt could do without.
The room was bright and frigid, giving Pitt a fierce intensity—a