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shingle on the second floor over the Wells Fargo office.”
    Bein cursed colorfully. “Oh, I know him, all right. He and Coleman are thick as thieves. He’s sure to inform the Vigilance Committee.”
    “I thought you said you weren’t worried about them.”
    “I’m not. I just don’t want any further trouble over this.” He glanced sideways at the hired thugs who were still standing guard at the corners of the broad porch. “If need be, we may have to eliminate the girl, too.”
    “Oh, now, I don’t know as I like that idea,” the sheriff said, edging away from the well-dressed man. “She’s just a young thing. Pretty, too. It’s bad enough her mama had to die the way she did.”
    “Only because she stuck her nose in where it didn’t belong,” Bein countered. “You lost one of yours in the gunfight, you know.”
    “I know. But Billy wasn’t all that bright to start with. He never should of showed himself when he shot Reese.” He was slowly shaking his head as he spoke. “Is it true that the woman got him?”
    “That’s my understanding,” Bein answered. “Which should prove to you that her daughter may be someone to be reckoned with. I don’t know about you, but I’m not going to go to jail just because some stupid woman points an accusing finger at me.”
    “I suppose you’re right.” Nodding soberly, Scannell perused the broad street. “All right. You look into it and get word to me if you need me to eliminate the girl, too. I won’t like it, but I’ll see that it’s done.”
    “Good man. And keep your mouth shut about this,” he added, eyeing the packet of gold the sheriff was about to deposit in Robert Reese’s workroom. “Now, go get rid of that evidence like I told you to.”
    “What’ll you be doing?” the sheriff asked.
    “Offering my condolences to my partner’s grieving family,” Bein said with a self-satisfied smile. “As soon as I find out where the children went, their loving uncle Will is going to offer them a nicesettlement and see that they have passage on the next ship back to Massachusetts, where their parents came from.”
    “You think they’ll go? Just like that?”
    “When they learn that this house and everything in it has legally passed to me upon the death of their father, I don’t see what other choice those little brats will have, do you?”

Chapter Four
    T he more time Sara Beth spent at the orphanage, the more she remembered about her early life there. Although she had been five when Mama had married Papa Robert, there were familiar smells and noises in that big old house that tugged at her consciousness and made her heart pound.
    Friends she had made back then, children she fondly remembered, were, of course, long gone. Those who had come along later and replaced them, however, were so like the ones she recalled that she suddenly pictured herself as very young. And very scared.
    Lucas and Mathias had quickly found other boys to interest them and had wandered off to explore the facility, while Josiah had fallen asleep in SaraBeth’s arms. She didn’t mind carrying him. Truth to tell, she was loath to even consider putting him down. It was as if she needed the little one’s nearness to comfort her, rather than the other way around.
    “Let’s get you something to eat and a nice cup of hot tea,” the matron said, ushering Sara Beth into the expansive kitchen where several other women were already hard at work.
    The aroma from the pot of gruel bubbling on the top of the woodstove nearly turned Sara Beth’s stomach. That was another of those old, pungent memories, this one best forgotten, she realized with the first whiff. Mama had never prepared that kind of breakfast for any of her family after they’d left the orphans’ home, and Sara Beth assumed that memories of being destitute were at the heart of her mother’s choices. That certainly made sense.
    She blinked in the steamy atmosphere, hoping she was not going to disgrace herself by