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 William 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.

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