McCall ate a few more bites. “I was an experienced agent long before Rachel joined the Pinkertons. I worked with her a few times before I moved out west. We have very few women as agents, and we are protective of them. When they feared Rachel might be dead, I was closest, and they wired me and asked me to come. The telegram had a few particulars about the case, and Mr. Pinkerton himself sent a packet by the first train headed west in hopes it would arrive by the time I did. I picked it up in Bear Claw Pass before I came out to the ranch. It contained every fact they had, including the information about the Jeffers school, which was new, and the information Rachel had dug up about the other missing housekeepers. But we didn’t have the pieces of the puzzle you found, Miss Garner, or Rachel’s exact notes.”

“Rachel told me what to look for.” Molly felt her cheeks turning pink. It was wrong to take credit while Rachel lay upstairs unconscious.

“And you said there are more packets? Can you guess how many more?”

Molly thought hard, then lifted her hands helplessly. “I just grabbed those you have and shut the safe. I don’t know how deep the safe is, so there’s no way to guess how many packets he had. He was coming fast. I should have gotten more. I should have—”

“No, you did exactly right. Taking just a few increases our chances that your investigating hasn’t been detected by Hawkins. According to Rachel’s notes, the two new names you found are of his former housekeepers. And the objects he kept are mementos of those women. The poems about missing them, written as they are, this is the kind of thing we sometimes see in men who seem to live a fairly normal life, then kill for . . . well, for pleasure.”

Cheyenne scowled. Win moaned and buried her face against Kevin’s arm.

Molly gasped. “That’s just sickening. I can’t believe there are such people.”

“One of the things that is off about this case is that men who do that don’t usually let years pass between victims,” McCall said. “That’s why I asked about the number of packets. If he is that kind of sick killer, then it’s very unlikely he’s killed only three women.”

“Only?” Wyatt’s brows shot up.

“Yes, according to this, we have multiple women who died or went missing while they were involved in some way with Hawkins.” McCall nodded at Win. “That includes your mother, Mrs. Hunt. I’m sorry to discuss such things in front of you.”

Kevin’s arm came around Win. She turned, her face now resting on his shoulder, and said, “If it’s true, then I want him found out. I want him to pay for killing my mother.”