Celia nodded, crying.

“I watched them put him in the wagon.” Rebecca did not tell her that tears were enough.

“You can tell the people searching for him where he went,” she said.

“You can give testimony that puts your own part in the story on the record.”

The widow resisted at first, saying she feared losing the farm.

Rebecca asked whether Celia believed the families whose children had disappeared feared anything less.

Celia looked at the page in her hands and said she would speak if someone helped secure protection for her younger daughters.

Alden later explained that he could not guarantee protection from men outside the law, but the group could arrange safe lodging and witnesses who would notice her disappearance.

Celia accepted those limits.

She wrote a statement naming Briggs, Fane, and Sutter as people who had collected travelers from the farm.

Her testimony led to an additional discovery.

Celia had kept a sack of clothing left by captives because she could not bring herself to burn it.

Inside were a girl’s blue scarf, a man’s hat, and a child’s book with an inscription from a parent.

Lydia recognized the book as belonging to a boy named Nathaniel Price, whose father had searched for him in Baltimore.

Miriam promised to find a way to return it.

The objects were modest, but each belonged to a life larger than the freight entries.

Rebecca understood why Lydia had refused to treat the ledger as the story itself.

The paper recorded transactions; the missing voices explained what those transactions had destroyed.

Chapter 30: Richard’s Last Bargain

Back at Riverbend, Richard learned that Celia Morton had spoken with visitors from Richmond.

Sutter arrived carrying news that copies of his forms were circulating among lawyers.

Fane wanted to move the remaining captives immediately and destroy the ledger copies before they reached a court.

Richard proposed a different plan: offer Catherine money and separation if she would persuade Lydia to surrender the originals.

Sutter doubted Catherine would comply.

Richard replied that every person had something to lose, and he intended to discover which loss she feared most.

He found Catherine in the upstairs sitting room beside the nursery window.

Her ankle remained swollen, but she no longer relied on him to arrange her day.

He offered to send her to Richmond with a carriage, an allowance, and an agreement that they would live apart without scandal.

“Your family will thank me for being generous,” he said.

Catherine asked what he wanted in exchange.