Chapter 1 - The Ring in the Dining Car
The first thing Nathaniel Cross noticed was not the little girl’s tears.
It was the ring.
A tiny sapphire set in old gold, hanging from a black thread around her neck because the band was far too large for her finger.
The dining car of the Silver Meridian rolled west beneath a copper evening sky, every lamp trembling with the rhythm of steel wheels and polished crystal. Wealthy cattle men, railroad lawyers, widows in feathered hats, and two senators’ sons occupied the tables beneath brass fixtures. At the far end of the car, Sheriff Amos Reed stood with one hand near his holster, pretending not to watch Nathaniel.
Everyone watched Nathaniel Cross.
They simply pretended better than the sheriff.
Nathaniel was thirty-nine, broad-shouldered, black-haired, sharp-eyed, and dressed in a black three-piece suit despite the desert heat outside. Ink climbed across the back of his right hand and disappeared beneath his cuff. The newspapers called him a freight magnate when they wanted advertising money and a mafia boss when they wanted circulation. Both descriptions were incomplete.
He owned warehouses, saloons, river contracts, freight routes, and enough frightened men to make most county judges careful.
He did not frighten easily.
Then the little girl appeared beside his table wearing the ring of a dead woman.
She was perhaps seven. Brown hair braided over one shoulder. Blue-gray dress with worn embroidery. Boots too large for her feet. Her eyes were red from crying, though she was trying very hard not to cry anymore.
Nathaniel lifted his gaze from the sapphire to her face.
“Where did you get that ring?”
The child froze.
The dining car quieted around them.
Sheriff Reed straightened.
A gray-bearded man seated behind Nathaniel muttered, “Cross, she’s a child.”
Nathaniel ignored him.
The girl’s small hand closed around the sapphire.
“It was my mama’s.”
Something inside Nathaniel went cold.
His younger sister, Clara Cross, had worn that ring every day from the age of sixteen until the night she vanished eleven years ago.
Their mother had given it to her.
Blue sapphire.
Seven tiny diamonds.
A flaw in the gold beneath the setting where Clara had dropped it on the kitchen tile when she was seventeen and cried harder about the ring than the broken tile.
Nathaniel knew that flaw.
He leaned closer.
The girl recoiled.
He stopped immediately.
His voice changed.
Softer.
“What was your mother’s name?”
The girl looked over her shoulder.
Nathaniel followed her gaze.
At the door between cars stood a thin woman in a brown traveling coat. Mid-thirties. Tired face. Dark hair pinned badly, as if she had dressed in a hurry. She looked terrified.
Not of the train.
Of him.
She hurried forward and placed both hands on the girl’s shoulders.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cross. She wandered away from our compartment.”
Nathaniel’s eyes remained on the ring.
“What is your name?”
The woman hesitated.
“Rose Dalton.”
“And the child?”
“Maisie.”
Nathaniel looked at the girl.
“Maisie Dalton?”
The child nodded.
Nathaniel’s pulse slowed in the dangerous way it did before violence.
“Your mother’s name.”
Rose answered before Maisie could.
“Eleanor.”
The lie came too quickly.
Nathaniel knew it.
So did Sheriff Reed.
Nathaniel stood.
The entire car seemed to shrink.
Rose pulled Maisie backward.
Nathaniel kept his hands visible.
“No one is touching either of you.”
“That is exactly what dangerous men say before they touch someone,” Rose replied.
Several passengers stared openly now.
Nathaniel almost respected her.
Almost.
He pointed to the necklace.
“That ring belonged to my sister.”
Rose’s face lost color.
Maisie looked up at her.
“Aunt Rose?”
There it was.
Not mother.
Nathaniel’s eyes sharpened.
Rose closed her eyes for one second.
Then opened them.
“Please sit down.”
Nathaniel did not.
“Who is her mother?”
Rose whispered, “Not here.”
He looked around the dining car.
Twenty witnesses.
Sheriff.
Two of Nathaniel’s men near the rear door.
A waiter holding a coffeepot as if it were a weapon.
Nathaniel said, “Fine.”
He sat.
Rose stared, surprised.
“Sit with her,” he said.
She did.
Maisie remained standing between them.
Nathaniel pushed a plate of untouched cake toward the child.
She looked at Rose.
Rose nodded.
Maisie ate immediately.
Hunger.
Nathaniel noticed.
He noticed everything now.
The dress had been mended twice.
Her shoes were secondhand.
The black thread holding the ring was fresh.
Someone had recently removed it from another chain.
“Where are you headed?” Nathaniel asked.
Rose answered, “San Espera.”
A mining town.
Three stops before Nathaniel’s destination.
“Why?”
“Family.”
Another lie.
Maisie swallowed cake and said, “We don’t have family there.”
Rose’s eyes closed.
Nathaniel almost smiled.
Children destroyed conspiracies efficiently.
Rose whispered, “Maisie.”
“What?”
Nathaniel leaned back.
“Who is your mother?”
The girl looked at Rose again.
Rose’s shoulders dropped.
“Tell him,” she whispered.
Maisie turned back.
“My mama’s name was Clara.”
Nathaniel stopped breathing.
The train kept moving.
Steel beneath them.
Wind beyond the windows.
Crystal shaking.
But inside Nathaniel, everything halted.
“Clara what?”
“Cross.”
Sheriff Reed took one slow step closer.
Nathaniel did not look at him.
“How old are you?”
“Seven.”
Clara vanished eleven years ago.
Four years before Maisie was born.
Possible.
His hands tightened beneath the table.
“Where is Clara?”
Maisie’s mouth trembled.
Rose spoke.
“She died last winter.”
Nathaniel stared at her.
The sentence did not fit inside the world.
He had spent eleven years believing Clara might be alive.
Then dead.
Then alive.
Then dead again depending on the day and how much whiskey he had taken.
He had paid detectives in five states.
Bribed railroad clerks.
Threatened men who deserved it and men who probably did not.
He found nothing.
Now a child with Clara’s eyes stood beside him wearing their mother’s sapphire.
“How?”
Rose looked toward Sheriff Reed.
Nathaniel followed.
The sheriff’s face was unreadable.
Rose whispered, “She was shot.”
Nathaniel’s eyes moved back to her.
“By whom?”
Rose did not answer.
The train lurched through a curve.
Maisie nearly fell.
Nathaniel’s hand moved automatically, catching her elbow before she hit the table.
She flinched.
He released immediately.
“Sorry.”
She looked surprised by the apology.
Nathaniel turned to Rose.
“Who killed my sister?”
Rose’s eyes filled.
“She made me promise I would get Maisie to San Espera.”
“Why?”
“There is a man there who has papers Clara hid.”
“What papers?”
“Proof.”
“Of what?”
Rose looked at Sheriff Reed again.
This time Nathaniel did not miss it.
Neither did the sheriff.
Nathaniel stood slowly.
Sheriff Reed’s hand went to his revolver.
Nathaniel’s men moved.
The dining car erupted in frightened whispers.
Nathaniel raised one hand.
His men stopped.
He looked directly at Reed.
“Sheriff.”
Reed’s jaw tightened.
“Cross.”
Rose clutched Maisie.
Nathaniel said, “You know her.”
Reed answered, “Never seen her.”
Rose began shaking.
Nathaniel saw it.
Maisie saw it too.
Then the child lifted one finger and pointed at the sheriff’s vest.
“That’s the man from Mama’s picture.”
No one breathed.
Reed went pale.
Nathaniel’s voice dropped.
“What picture?”
Maisie said, “The one Mama burned before she died.”
Sheriff Reed reached for his gun.
Nathaniel was faster.
Not by drawing.
By grabbing the sheriff’s wrist and slamming it against the edge of the table.
The revolver hit the carpet.
Passengers screamed.
Nathaniel’s men moved in.
No shots.
Nathaniel preferred questions alive.
He pinned Reed’s arm behind his back.
“Everybody stay calm.”
An absurd instruction from the man currently holding a sheriff against a dining table.
Reed spat, “You have no idea what you’re doing.”
Nathaniel leaned close.
“No.”
His eyes went to Maisie.
The sapphire rested over her small chest.
“But I know what I’m looking at.”
Rose whispered, “Nathaniel, stop.”
The use of his first name caught him.
“You knew Clara well.”
Rose’s face folded.
“She was my best friend.”
Nathaniel released Reed only when his men had secured him.
Then he crouched in front of Maisie.
Slowly.
Carefully.
“Did your mother tell you anything about me?”
Maisie nodded.
Nathaniel’s throat tightened.
“What?”
“She said you were scary.”
A few passengers almost laughed.
Nathaniel waited.
Maisie continued.
“But she said scary wasn’t the same as bad.”
He looked down.
For the first time in years, Nathaniel Cross did not know what to do with his face.
Maisie touched the sapphire.
“She said if she couldn’t come with me, I should find the man who knows why the ring is cracked underneath.”
Nathaniel looked at Rose.
Then at the ring.
Then at the sheriff being held by his men.
Clara had left a message no stranger could fake.
The flaw beneath the sapphire.
A childhood accident only the Cross family knew.
Nathaniel stood.
“San Espera can wait.”
Rose’s eyes widened.
“No. Clara said—”
“The man waiting there may already know you’re coming.”
“He has the papers.”
“And Reed knew your route.”
Nathaniel looked down at the sheriff.
“Which means someone else does too.”
The train whistle screamed through the desert night.
Nathaniel turned to Marco Bell, his most trusted guard.
“Stop this train at the next secure siding.”
Marco nodded.
Rose stared.
“You can stop a passenger line?”
Nathaniel looked at her.
“I own the track for the next sixty miles.”
Maisie blinked.
“You own the train?”
“No.”
“Just the road?”
“Mostly.”
She considered this.
“That’s strange.”
Nathaniel almost smiled again.
Then Sheriff Reed laughed from the floor.
“You think the ring makes her family?”
Nathaniel’s expression vanished.
Reed continued.
“Ask Rose who Clara’s husband was.”
Rose went white.
Nathaniel turned.
“Rose.”
She could barely speak.
“Nathaniel…”
“Who?”
Rose looked at Maisie.
Then at him.
“Your brother.”
The world stopped for the second time that evening.
Nathaniel had one brother.
Julian Cross.
Dead nine years.
Officially killed in a warehouse fire after betraying the family.
Nathaniel had signed the order that drove Julian into hiding.
He had spent nine years believing Julian died because of him.
Rose whispered the final truth.
“Maisie isn’t only Clara’s daughter.”
Nathaniel looked at the child.
“She’s Julian’s too.”
The little girl standing in the dining car was not simply his missing sister’s child.
May you like
She was the daughter of both siblings Nathaniel had lost.
And somebody had murdered at least one of them to keep her hidden.
