Love on the Range (Brothers in Arms #3)(59)

The trail was wide, and she suspected they didn’t take the shortest route, so they could avoid certain spots.

One thing she did know, Wyatt had been riding for town when he’d been shot. He’d split up from Falcon and Cheyenne, who had followed Ralston’s trail. Wyatt had chased after Rachel, thinking she was part of the gang with Ralston. Now they were riding from town to the Hawkins Ranch. The place Wyatt had been shot was around here somewhere.

They kept moving fast and were going at a full gallop when they charged into Hawkins’s ranch yard. No one had attacked them along the way. And now that they’d arrived, no one poked a head out of the barn or bunkhouse.

The whole place had an abandoned look about it.

Wyatt swung down and hitched his horse by the back door. By the time Molly dismounted, Wyatt had the door open and was inside, shouting Hawkins’s name.

“Falcon, Cheyenne.” Molly rushed after Wyatt. “Hawkins is usually in his office. Check there. I’m going to look at his safe.”

There were unwashed dishes in the sink. Dried, burnt food in pans on the stove. It looked a lot like it had when she’d started as a housekeeper here.

Pounding up the stairs with Wyatt on her heels, she found a mess. Clothes strewn about. The bed unmade. Ignoring all that, she went straight to the safe, dropped to her knees beside the dresser, and flipped open the cunningly hidden floorboard.

Sheriff Corly came into the room behind Wyatt, and Molly was glad he was here. She wanted a witness to what was in the safe. Someone who didn’t have a grudge against Hawkins, as she knew every member of the family did.

John was a step behind him.

Reaching in, she dialed the combination and opened the iron safe. It was still full of packets. Whatever had happened, Oliver hadn’t taken time to clean it out.

“Sheriff, you take these out. I want you to know I haven’t done a thing to tamper with them.”

The sheriff knelt beside her and drew out envelope after envelope.

“Did he create a packet and write a poem for each woman he killed?” Wyatt crouched beside the sheriff.

“B-but there are a dozen or more of them.” Molly eased back. She pressed her hand to her twisting stomach. To think of so many murders.

“The top one says your name, Miss Garner.” The sheriff held it up for her to read. “And there’s one for Miss Hobart. Those show he intended harm but didn’t do murder.”

“Because we got away,” Molly said grimly.

The sheriff nodded. “Let’s hope more of these packets are the same.” He got everything out of the safe, then lifted all the contents up to spread them across the top of the dresser.

“This is the one down the farthest,” the sheriff said. “It’s got two names on it. A man and a woman. Last name Hunt.”

“He kept a record of his parents’ murders?” Molly didn’t look anymore. The rest of them, save Falcon and Cheyenne, who hadn’t come up yet, began combing through what they’d found.

“The next one has his wife’s name on it.” Wyatt tore open the sealed letter and pulled a small painting out. He held it up, a small oval painting about two inches wide and maybe three high. “The woman in this picture looks a lot like Win. And there’s a poem.

“My beloved wife, my betrayer.

My heart aches for what she made me do.

No greater serpent have I nurtured to my bosom, save my own mother.

Do not ask my forgiveness for you are not worthy.

Now I must go on alone.”

“He’s blaming her.” John reread the poem with a cynical scowl on his face. “In my work, I’ve found it’s typical that an abusive man blames the woman. Whatever he did, however she ended up dead, he blames her for it.”

“Hawkins makes no mention of his wife dying birthing a child,” Wyatt added.

The sheriff said grimly, “I consider this poem as good as a confession.” He looked at John.

Molly felt the lawmen banding together. It was a little annoying considering she’d been something of a lawman herself while in Hawkins’s house. Plus, she’d found the safe and now opened it.

She wasn’t going to be left out. “We should search the house. I’ve always wondered what’s on the third floor.”

“And we should take his account books.” Wyatt sounded like he didn’t like being left out, either.

“If he’s run away, where would he go?” Molly wondered out loud. “Could he have a hideout right here in the house?”

“Rachel looked at the floor plans and talked to one of the men who helped build it,” John said. “She hasn’t specifically said there isn’t a hidden room, but she’d’ve mentioned it if there was something like that on the plans. And she found both safes, so they knew she was wondering what he might be hiding.”

“I’m surprised the builders talked that much,” Sheriff Corly said.

“I asked Rachel about that, and she said Hawkins was tightfisted, slow to pay his bills, and, in the end, cut back on what he paid by complaining about shoddy workmanship.”

Everyone took a moment to look around the oversized bedroom. The house was splendid and still standing in very good shape twenty years after it was built.

“Yep,” Wyatt muttered, “I’ll bet they didn’t mind gossiping about him.”