“It’s so fucking awful,” Riley said out loud. “Terrible things happened to all of those women: Hattie, Jane, Ann. It’s like the women in that family were all cursed. Doomed to have their lives end in violence.”

Helen nodded, eyes still on the picture in the article—the smiling faces of Ann and Samuel in front of their Christmas tree. “Where’s Elsbury?” she asked.

“Southeast of here. Probably a little over an hour away.”

“I think I’ll take a ride down there. Take a look around.”

Riley looked up at her, squinting a little. “You want to bring something back, don’t you? For the house? For Hattie?”

Helen nodded. “I feel like it’s the least I can do. A way to pay tribute.”

And maybe, just maybe, it would be enough to bring Ann back. Helen let herself imagine it—three generations of Breckenridge women in her kitchen.

Riley looked at her a minute. “It’s like you’re creating a sort of family tree with objects,” she said. “It’s such a beautiful idea. A real way to honor those poor Breckenridge women.”

Riley turned back to the computer, typed again, scanned the screen, then found what she was looking for. “202 County Road, Elsbury,” she said, writing it down on a scrap of paper. “That’s where the old Gray farmhouse is. Where the murder took place.”

CHAPTER 23

Olive

AUGUST 7, 2015

“You got these from where, exactly?”

Olive was kneeling on the ground outside with a hammer and chisel, cleaning the old cement off the bricks. They’d spent the morning inside, working on the wiring. Riley had come by to help for a bit, and they’d finished the entire downstairs. Then Riley left to get to work, and Nate ran down to the trailer.

Olive scraped at the brick with the chisel. She had her new I see all necklace tucked under her T-shirt.

Helen and Nate were going to use the bricks to build a hearth in the living room, underneath the woodstove. Helen explained that instead of the traditional fireplace at the heart of the old New England saltbox, they’d have a much more efficient high-tech woodstove. They should be able to heat the whole house much of the time and use the propane heat for backup on really cold days. Olive nodded thoughtfully. She liked the little history lessons Helen incorporated into everyday conversations and had learned a lot about colonial New England and how the first settlers survived. Those were the stories that interested her the most. She didn’t care much about heat sources or how energy efficient a woodstove was. She wanted to hear about chopping wood, killing animals, how there were no refrigerators so people cut ice in blocks out of lakes.