Lydia Crane watched Marcus, her pen poised over her legal notepad.

The deputy behind her shifted his weight, his leather holster creaking in the silence.

“That’s nonsense,” Marcus muttered, though the color had completely drained from his face.

“It didn’t sound like nonsense, Marcus,” Aunt Caroline whispered.

She stepped fully into the hall, her knees trembling beneath her knitted skirt.

Behind her, my cousin Blake appeared from the shadows of the library.

Blake had arrived from Richmond an hour ago, his face grim and his coat still damp from the river fog.

“Who is holding your debt, Marcus?” Blake asked, his voice flat.

“None of your business,” Marcus snapped, turning his back on us.

“It is our business when they are calling our family home with threats,” I said.

Marcus rounded on me, pointing a finger. “You don’t own this place. You just hold a key to a dirt patch on the ridge.”

“Actually, she might own more than you think,” Lydia Crane said, stepping between us.

She held up the zoning map she had taken from Warren Bellamy’s office earlier that morning.