She lingered in the woods, drawing back into the shadows as the car came to a halt. The longer she stayed in the woods, the brighter the sun would become and the more time Sheriff Boyd would have to get word out to the law in the surrounding area.

Sadie backed farther into the darkness and tried to figure out where she could hide while not freezing to death.

“Sadie!”

Olivia’s familiar voice had her halting. She hesitated, not sure if it was a trap. She stayed silent, not moving a muscle.

“I’ve been looking for you for hours. Edward told me the sheriff was looking for you.”

Sadie gripped the branch of a tree, searching for any signs of Edward or the sheriff.

“You need to come with me now,” she said. “I’ll take you to the train station.”

Sadie stepped out from the trees, pushing the branches aside as she moved slowly toward the road. Olivia got out of the car, and the headlights lit up her face, tight with tension.

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I know your truck broke down on the road to Charlottesville. You couldn’t have gotten but so far on foot. I also saw the sheriff’s car coming the other way, and you weren’t in it.”

Sadie hurried around the front of the car and got into the front seat. “Is my mama okay? She has my baby.”

“I haven’t had a chance to check in on them. My first priority is to get you to Charlottesville and put you on a train.”

“He didn’t arrest Mama?”

“Not that I know of.” Olivia pushed in the clutch and ground the gears as she eased the car into first.

“I think I killed Malcolm.”

“He’s not dead, but you’ve done him serious harm.”

Sadie hugged her arms around her chest. “He did his share of harm to me.”

“He might not walk again.”

She stared out the window at the dark trees rushing past. “He called me a whore. He said I deserved what I got.”

“He’ll have the rest of his life to regret those words along with his limp.”

Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m not a whore.”

“No, you’re not.” Olivia leaned forward into the steering wheel.

“You shouldn’t be driving this early,” Sadie said.

A smile tugged the edges of her lips. “I think that is the least of my sins right now.”

Sadie smoothed her damp palms over the rough fabric of her overalls. “Where is Dr. Carter?”

“He’s sleeping.”

“Sleeping? Through all this?”

“I might have slipped him some of my sleep medicine. It won’t hurt him. The poor man was exhausted anyway. I’ll be home when he wakes up.”

“He’ll be mad as hell.”

“Then I’ll attempt to tell him again that I’m pregnant, and all will be forgotten.”

“You have a baby in your belly? You shouldn’t be driving like this!”

The car rumbled over a rut in the road. “This little guy will just have to hold on tight.”

“You shouldn’t be doing this for me.”

“I couldn’t have lived with myself if I didn’t.”

Sadie gathered the folds of her coat together, too tense to ease back in the seat. She did not want to leave home. “What about Johnny and Danny? When they come home, they won’t know how to find me if I’m on the run.”

“When you get to wherever you’re going, write them, and let them know where you are.”

“What about Mama and the baby?”

“I’ll look after them.”

“I don’t deserve this kindness.”

“You deserve much more.”

Tears rolled down Sadie’s cheeks, but she did not have the energy to sob or cry. It took almost an hour before Olivia pulled into the Charlottesville train station. She parked out front and set the brake. “The train will be here shortly. All you have to do is wait.”

“Where am I going?”

“To Washington.” Olivia took a handful of bills from her pocket. “This will buy your ticket. There are plenty of jobs now in the factories. With your skill with machines, you’ll find work.”

“I never figured it would be like this.”

“Life rarely goes the way we’d like it,” she said as she pressed the money into Sadie’s hand.

Sadie dug her hand into her pocket and reached for the money her mother had given her. “Give this back to Mama. She’s going to need it. I can’t take her money.”

“If she gave it to you, she wanted you to have it.”

“No. I ain’t taking her money. I took too much already.”

Olivia accepted the money. “All right. I’ll see that she gets it.”

“And I’ll pay you back.” She had always wanted to leave Bluestone but had never pictured herself running for her life.

Sadie leaned forward and hugged Olivia. “You take care of that baby of yours. And if you ever need anything from me, all you have to do is ask.”

A train whistle blew in the distance. “I’ll surely call on you.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

LIBBY

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

The Woodmont Estate

“How do you know so much about Sadie Thompson?” Libby asked.

“She was my mother,” Margaret said.

“Which means Malcolm Carter was your father.”

“Yes.”

“What happened to him?” Libby’s mind scrambled up her newly discovered family tree, trying to figure out where her family intersected with Colton’s. Thankfully, it went back three generations.

“Malcolm always walked with a limp after what Sadie did to him. But when he got out of the hospital, he never went after my grandmother or me. I didn’t know until years later that it was Miss Olivia who kept him away. She threatened to leave Edward if there were repercussions against my grandmother or me.”

“Is he still alive?”

“No, Malcolm Carter died in 2000. He married several times, had children by all his wives, but in the end died alone and broke in a nursing home.”

“Did you ever see Sadie again?” Libby asked.

“When I was thirteen. The sheriff had died, and Sadie Thompson had become a bit of a folk legend, so Miss Olivia must have decided it was safe to take me to New York. You see, Miss Olivia hired my grandmother as her baby’s nurse, and I spent many of my early years in the nursery with their son, Stuart. Then as we reached school age, Stuart went off to boarding school, and I went to public school and then later to work in the Carters’ kitchen.”

“You’ve been here ever since you were a baby?”

“Miss Olivia saved my mother, my grandmother, and me. And when it came time for my Ginger to go to school, Miss Olivia saw to it there was scholarship money that got her all the way through medical school. She did the same for Colton.”

“After all that, why didn’t she help Elaine?”

Margaret sighed. “Miss Olivia wanted Malcolm arrested for what he’d done to Sadie, but Dr. Carter covered for his cousin, so of course charges were never brought. After that she didn’t trust her husband. He made her life here difficult even after she helped Sadie. Publicly he was always attentive to her, but behind closed doors he was distant and cold.”