Before leaving, he had entrusted his research notes to someone.
Not a doctor.
A local man.
Rosalie read the name.
Then stopped.
Gideon saw her expression.
He took the paper.
At the bottom, written in faded ink, were the words:
Research materials delivered to Jonathan Ashford for safekeeping.
Rosalie’s father.
Gideon looked at her.
Neither moved.
Her father had not merely known about Dr. Bell.
He had possessed Bell’s records.
Perhaps for decades.
Rosalie thought of the fifty dollars.
The rushed marriage.
Her father’s fear when she mentioned Bell.
And suddenly the arrangement no longer looked like an act of desperation.
It looked like an attempt to move Rosalie out of the Ashford house before she discovered something.
Then someone knocked at the cabin door.
Three slow knocks.
