Taking the chicken, he added it to his plate with some stuffing. Just the smell made his mouth water. He was sure Molly had again prepared an unusually delicious meal.

“I suspect your father of being a murderer.” Hobart picked up the bowl of glazed carrots. “I think he killed your mother.”

Molly’s quiet gasp drew Wyatt’s eyes. He handed her the chicken platter. And he had to hold it for too long. She wasn’t paying attention to anyone but Win.

Kevin’s arm came around Win. He said fiercely, “You don’t have to talk to her, Win.”

The way Kevin said it sharpened Wyatt’s attention. From his earliest memory, Win had always stayed here. A little, motherless girl, then she’d vanished off to boarding school for years and never once came home, even for summers. When she had finally come home, she spent her free time here, not at her pa’s house. Wyatt had never considered why. He didn’t care much for Hawkins, and he just accepted that Win preferred the company of Cheyenne, her childhood friend, to her loud, lazy father.

Now he asked himself if there was more to it than that.

He wondered at Molly’s reaction, too. It was a shocking statement by Hobart, but Molly seemed to be struck hard.

“I am blunt, Winona. I don’t apologize for it. Yes, your husband is right, you don’t have to talk to me. But I traveled to Chicago to find background on Hawkins. I couldn’t find much before he married your mother. He was untraceable, and I’m good at tracing. I suspect he isn’t using the name he was born with and most everything your mother knew about him was an invention. There were people willing to share suspicions with me—old friends of your mother and your grandparents. Their suspicions, combined with his treatment of me and Amelia Bishop, made me wonder. I looked closer and found two former housekeepers that disappeared. Can you remember when your mother died?”

Win closed her bright blue eyes and drew in a long, slow breath, as if gathering herself. Kevin pulled her closer.

Win’s hand went to where his rested on her shoulder. She said to him, though not so quietly the whole table couldn’t hear, “I need to tell her.”

Kevin slowly, reluctantly, nodded.

“I-I sh-share your suspicions, Mrs. Hobart.”

“Please, it’s Rachel. No missus. I told your father I was a widow when I took the job.”