"Please let me go. I promise I won't tell anyone anything. Just please let me off at the next stop."

Philip looked over at the woman lying on his bed as the train clacked down the track. It had been less than a day and already she had pushed his patience to the limit. "Fine, if you will just shut up!" He got up and walked over to the bed removing his silk robe as he went. Even with this woman begging to be let go, he could still see the lust for his body in her eyes. That only excited him more.

He had not allowed her to dress, and had kept her hands tied since the first time he'd had her. Within seconds he began to take the whore. He had thought about keeping her a little longer, but he couldn't help himself. The tension was building in his body, begging to be released. Her hands were still tied behind her back, so it was easy for him to slide his fingers around her throat and squeeze until she passed out.

Unlike the last three times he'd had her, once she was unconscious; he continued the pressure until his release consumed him just as her last breath left her lungs. It was really almost a pity to kill her, she seemed to like sex the same way that he did, hard, fast, and violent. But in the end, she was just a whore and they were a dime a dozen. He rolled over onto his back, panting as he stared at the glossy wood ceiling.

He found her! By God he found her! He knew he would, it was just a matter of time. His hands itched to beat her for what she'd put him through. After he married her, she wouldn't be able to leave the room without his permission. His only concern was about the man she had married and the brat she was carrying. Fury coursed through him as he thought about what that man had taken from him. He should have been the first and only man to ever touch her! He had to have her though, there was just something about her, and now no other woman would do. At least he would be able to get a virgin from Miguel Gonzales any time he wanted a new one.

As for as the man Hope was married to and the child she carried, well, he was feeling generous. He would give her a choice, she could divorce the man and leave the child, or he would simply kill them. Then, after the two of them were on their way back to Savannah, he would have them killed. A deep rumble of laughter erupted from his chest, filling the silence of the room.

He turned his head to see the whore still sprawled out on his bed. Jumping to his feet, he slid back into his robe, then picked up her lifeless body, throwing it over his shoulder. He then opened the door at the back of his rail car. Philip stepped out onto the platform, tossing her over the railing. In the dusk, he could see her creamy body bounce and roll along in the grass beside the train tracks. Excitement filled his body all over again. God, he loved killing!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Levi had decided not to send one of his men to talk with Andy. This was something he wanted to do himself. He left Hope asleep in their bed and instructions to have breakfast taken up to her a little later. Ellie was in the kitchen with Claire cooking when he left.

The ride to town went faster than usual. Levi's mind was spinning in a million different directions. All he could think about was the man at the diner yesterday. Was the man someone Hope knew? Was it the man she was to have married? Was it someone who knew her former fiancé? It hadn't bothered him that Hope had lost her memory, until now. He may have to hire a Pinkerton to go back to Savannah and do a little digging. Hope had never mentioned the other man's name to him, but now he really felt like it was time he learned as much as he could. They just had too much to lose.

As Levi rode in to town, he immediately noticed a commotion around the hotel. He pulled his horse up to the jail. Wrapping the reins around the hitching rail, he jumped on the boardwalk and headed into the jail. Just before he touched the door knob, his name was called out behind him. Levi turned to see Andy trotting across the street coming towards him.

"Hey, there." Levi extended his hand for his friend to shake it. "What's going on over at the hotel?" He asked as he nodded his head in that direction.

"Well, that's what I wanted to talk to you about." Levi's brows drew together. "I know this is going to piss you off, but I have to ask, because everyone else in town is already wondering. Where were you last night?"

"I was at home with Hope and Ellie, why?"

"I knew you were, but like I said I had to ask. Jed was found dead this morning. Someone cut his throat at the bottom of the back steps."

"I want to be mad that you asked me, but I can't. I know you have to do your job. I hate that. I really do." Levi said as he took his hat off and slapped it against his thigh as he ran his fingers through his hair. "Jed used to be a good man and a good friend. All the shit with Alicia changed him. The bitch was full of poison. I can't say that I miss her at all."

Shoving his hat back down on his head, he looked over at the hotel then back at Andy. "Did you find anything, any clues? Is there anything I can help you with?"

"No, there were footprints and what looks like maybe cane impressions, but other than that, nothing. What brings you to town so early?"

"I wanted to ask you if you'd noticed any strangers in town lately. Hope and I were eating at the diner yesterday and she saw a man that she said made her skin crawl." Levi anticipated the question he knew Andy would ask. "No, she didn't recognize him. She said that she kept feeling as if someone was staring at her until he left. Once he was gone, the feeling went away."

"You think it was the man her father wanted her to marry, don't you?"

"If not him, then someone who knows him. I think I'm going to send a Pinkerton to Savannah to see if we can find out a little more about her father and who her fiancé was. . In fact, I think I'll send a telegram before I go home." Levi looked around but noticed that the train was gone. "Where's the train?"

"It pulled out about six o'clock this morning. One of the engineers was sick so they stopped here. They sent a telegram to the head office and were told to leave the sick man here and to pull out this morning. The other engineer told me that they had an important passenger from Georgia and they would pick up another engineer a couple of towns over."

As soon as Andy said Georgia, he knew. Whoever they saw yesterday was someone from Hope's past. Now, he just needed to find out all he could about the passenger on the train. "Do you think you can find out who that passenger was? You know with the murder happening while the train was here. The railroad wouldn't want to be harboring a fugitive. It would make them look bad. They want people to think traveling by rail is safe. It's bad enough they have to deal with the hold ups." Levi finished with a big smile.

Andy understood completely. The railroad would be more than happy to give him the information he wanted. He watched as his friend turned and walked off to the telegraph office. There was no doubt in his mind that Levi would find out what he wanted to know, he always did. The man was like a dog with a bone.

It had been two months since the stranger on the train left town. Everyone in Red Valley knew that Levi and Jed had a falling out but only Andy and Cole knew why. Fortunately, no one thought that he was responsible for Jed's death anymore. The first few days had been a little difficult but having Andy on his side and Hope vouching for his whereabouts that evening squelched any lingering doubt.

Several days after the train left Red Valley, a couple of drifters found the nude body of a woman near the rail road tracks. The drifters took the woman into the town of Wellers, a small town about thirty miles away, to the sheriff. Two more women were found within a week and a half after that. They were all nude and they had all been strangled. Andy had already telegraphed the sheriffs of all the towns along the rail road for one hundred miles hoping to get information, but also to give a warning.

When the first woman was brought in, the sheriff of Wellers had immediately let Andy know about it. The day before the telegram came from the sheriff of Wellers, Lulu from the saloon had been in to see him and let him know that Maria was missing. She'd gone with a man who had come in on the train. They hadn't gone upstairs at the saloon, so she assumed that it was the man that was in the private car, but there was no way to know for sure. It looked suspicious, especially when two more women had been found, and all three had black hair.

It was very unsettling that all of the women were eerily similar to Hope, pretty much confirming what Levi thought. They also finally got an answer from the railroad about who the mysterious man with the private rail car was. His name was Philip Huntington. Levi hired a Pinkerton to go to Savannah. As soon as Philip's name had been given to him, he immediately sent a telegram to Nigel Fenter, the Pinkerton detective, giving him this new information. Several weeks later, Levi received a telegram back saying that he had a plethora of information. Nigel needed to confirm a few more things and then he would be on his way back to Red Valley.

Levi paced back and forth on the train platform anxiously awaiting the arrival of the afternoon train. All he could think about was the last message he received from Nigel. In a way he wanted this mysterious person to be Hope's former fiancé. If it were, then they would know what he looked like and who he was. One always needed to know who one's enemy was, and this Philip person was a cold son of a bitch. Just the thought of his sweet and loving Hope being married to a monster like that made his stomach churn.

The sound of a shrill whistle blowing in the distance brought Levi's thoughts back to the present. He lifted his eyes to see tiny puffs of smoke billowing out of the engine. Reaching up, he pulled off his hat and slapped it against his thigh as he shoved his fingers through his shaggy hair causing it to stand on end. He set his hat back on his head and tried to wait patiently for the train to come into the station. He hadn't been this nervous about the train's arrival since Hope came.

A few minutes later the train chugged up to the platform. Clouds of white steam billowed around the engine as the metal wheels squealed to a stop against the tracks. Levi stood back letting the passengers disembark. Finally a tall slim man wearing a brown suit and string tie, with a brown bowler hat stepped off the train. Although the two men had never met, they instinctively knew who the other was.

The tall slender man in the suit walked straight over to him. "Mr. Levi Matthews?" Levi nodded and held out his hand. "I'm Nigel Fenter. It's a pleasure to finally meet you sir." The man looked a tad on the soft side but when Levi shook his hand, he was impressed by the strong grip.

"It's a pleasure to meet you too Mr. Fenter."

"Nigel please. Mr. Fenter is my father. Where can we go to talk, I have a lot of information for you."

"If you don't mind, we can go to the sheriff's office. Andy's a friend of mine and he won't mind if we talk there." The other man nodded, following Levi as he turned and walked off. A few minutes later they entered the jail. Andy was sitting behind his desk leaned back in his chair, his feet propped up on his desk with his arms crossed as Cole stood propped against the wall. Both men looked up when Levi and Nigel opened the door.

"Andy, Cole, this is Nigel, the Pinkerton agent I hired. He just got in off the train and I thought we could talk in here, if that's ok with you."

Both men nodded and greeted Nigel. "Of course you can. Do you want us to leave?" Andy asked jumping to his feet as Cole pushed off the wall.

"No, no, I'd really rather you both stay." Andy nodded and sat back down, while Cole leaned back against the wall as Levi and Nigel both pulled chair up to the desk. "Okay Nigel, what did you find out?"

"Well sir." He said after clearing his throat. "The man on the train was Philip Huntington; he was the fiancé of your wife before she left. From what I can tell, it was Philip that was responsible for Mrs. Matthews' father losing his money; although he wasn't a very smart man to get tangled up with someone like Huntington. He's an evil man."

"The sheriff of Savannah told me that they suspect Huntington of numerous murders. Most of them are women, all with black hair. They are also pretty positive that he killed Jed Saunders too." He paused for a minute as Levi's eyes widened in question. "It seems that Saunders lost everything, as I told you, to Huntington. Several months after your wife left, Saunders was forcefully removed from his house and lived in the streets."

"Why would he live in the streets? Surely he could have stayed with family or friends." Levi said.

"Well, it seems that Saunders wasn't very well-liked by anyone, including those that used to be his friends and he had no family that I could find. From what I understand, he was a mean son of a bitch that beat his wife and daughter regularly. People genuinely liked your wife and did not approve of the way he treated her, especially when he sold her to Huntington to pay off his debts."

"Saunders' body was found in an alley, murdered around Christmas. Again, Huntington is suspected. They just haven't been able to find anything that leads directly back to him. People just kept disappearing and when he left Savannah a couple of months ago, the dead brunettes stopped turning up. Huntington isn't even his real name. It's Caper, he changed it when he was 20. He came from a lower middle class family and was an attorney at a prominent law firm, Blackman and Swift."

"I'm not sure how he did it but he convinced Horace Blackman that he came from a prominent family from South Carolina. It wasn't long before he married Horace's daughter Almyra. They were married for about two years when she had a tragic fall down the stairs, killing her. Of course, that was long enough for him to get her money. About a year later he married another wealthy socialite by the name of Leticia Moorehouse. Unfortunately, she too died tragically from a mysterious debilitating disease. After the death of his second wife, eight years ago, he had enough money with the investments he'd made that he didn't have to remarry. Fortunately for the wealthy women of Savanah." Nigel finally paused.

"You mean to tell me that neither one of these women's families questioned their deaths?" Levi asked. A sick feeling began to grow in the pit of his stomach at the thought of his Hope being married to that evil monster with no conscience. "Why is or was he so insistent on marrying Hope?"

"The only thing I've been able to find out about that is that he just wanted her." Nigel said quietly.

"Why didn't he do anything while he was here?" Cole asked from behind them. All three of the men had been quietly taking in all of the information Nigel had given them.

"My guess is that he was shocked to find her and the fact that she's not only married but also very pregnant. And, you are a rather intimidating man." Nigel said looking at Levi. "Huntington, from what I've learned, is a very calculating man and does nothing without extensive planning. My guess is that he's doing that planning now and will make his move after she's had the baby."

Levi sighed heavily as he took his hat off his head and ran his fingers through his hair. "I don't want to say anything to Hope until after she has the babies." At the mention of the word babies, Nigel looked up at Levi, his eyes widening slightly. "Doc Baker doesn't want anything to upset her." The three other men in the room nodded in agreement.

Before anything else could be said, the sound of thundering hooves could be heard. One horse came to a skidding stop in front of the sheriff's office while another flew past to Doc Baker's office. All four men jump to their feet just as the door was thrown open by a panting Tuck. "Thank God you're here!" He said looking directly at Levi. "Hope's having the babies. Her labor started a couple of hours ago." Without another word, Levi jumped up and ran out the door to get his horse, flying home as fast as he could.

B