“I’ve kept many things quiet because every person who asked about them disappeared.”
Eunice sliced another apple with the measured force of someone cutting through more than fruit.
“Your father left a mark in the south wall of the mill.”
“What kind of mark?”
“He said you’d know it if you ever went looking.”
The kitchen door opened.
They returned instantly to the language of ordinary work.
Daniel carried the chair away.
By sunset he had a reason to visit the mill and an invitation he had never wanted to receive.
The colonel had summoned him to inspect the chapel doors the following morning.
Richard Blackwood rarely gave orders in person unless he intended to deliver a warning.
Daniel prepared his tools with steady hands.
Inside his toolbox he placed a small folding ruler, his father’s chisel, and a folded scrap bearing three names from the ledger.
He did not know whether any of them would lead him to Ruth.
He knew only that the search had finally begun.
Chapter 5: The Colonel and the Chapel
On Sunday morning Richard Blackwood waited beside the chapel with his gloves folded neatly in one hand.
The building stood on a rise above the fields, whitewashed each spring so that visitors saw its clean face before they saw the cabins beyond it.
Richard had paid for a new bell the previous year.
He liked to mention the bell whenever guests admired the estate.
Daniel had installed its wooden support without assistance.
He approached the chapel carrying tools and a narrow box of hinges.
“Good morning, Colonel.”
Richard looked first at the tools and then at Daniel’s face.
“I heard my wife needed trunks moved.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did she keep you long?”
“Long enough to place them where she wanted.”
The colonel smiled without showing his teeth.
“My wife is lonely when I travel.”
Daniel kept his attention on the chapel door.
“She wanted the trunks beside the window.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Daniel looked up.
Richard’s gray eyes studied him with a cold precision that resembled the appraisal of a horse.
“I didn’t hear another question, sir.”
The colonel let the silence last.
Then he pressed a gloved finger against the warped chapel frame.
“Fix that before the evening service.”
Daniel measured the gap and found it narrower than his thumbnail.
The hinges were sound.
The lock turned smoothly.
There was no need for a carpenter.
Richard had summoned him for conversation, not repairs.
