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I turned away to give them privacy, though the chores were all but done for the day. The staggering heat of the summer day meant an early start tomorrow on the construction work at the cabins.

I didn’t want to leave the stables, not if there was a chance that I’d see Eva. Not that I’d seen much of her since we returned from Salem.

Peter walked up to me with his hands in his pockets and a questioning, thoughtful look on his face.

“What is it, Peter?” I would have thought the excitement of his mother’s return would still be fresh.

“A man just arrived, and he said you’d called him, that he served with you and Dad. Junior let him through the gate, so I figured he must know him too, right?”

Junior had joined our unit in the last few months of the war. We trusted him, but would he have known everyone who had served in the 42nd?

My pulse pricked and I looked around. We weren’t expecting any new Ghost Soldiers. “Where is he? What was his name?”

The boy suddenly looked ill. “Oh no, I wasn’t supposed to let him walk about the property, was I?”

My heart now hammered. “Where is he? His name?”

Eddie and Violet walked up, drawn by the rising volume in my voice.

Peter’s face clouded over with fear, the same look of a frightened boy near death after he’d been bitten.

“His name, Peter,” Eddie commanded gently.

“H-he said it was Jacobs. Errol Jacobs.”

My gaze snapped to Eddie.

“What is it?” Violet asked.

Eddie pushed Peter and Violet toward the stairs of the apartment. “Get up there and lock the door. Don’t come out for anything.”

Violet gasped. “Annie?”

Eddie gripped her shoulder. “I’ll find her. Stay with Peter.”

I’d already started sweeping the aisles, looking for any sign of Eva. “Eva!” I called.

The name rang through my head in terror. Staff Sergeant Errol Jacobs had died in Germany in the winter of 1944.

Whoever had shown up, posing as a Ghost Soldier, wasn’t Errol Jacobs.

Eddie followed me with his pistol out and ready. Eva should be preparing grain, but we didn’t see her anywhere in this barn.

Lucky saw us and immediately dropped the water bucket in his hand and pulled the sidearm from his boot. “How many?” he asked.

“One,” Eddie hissed. “Posing as Jacobs.”

“Eva?” I called out again.

“I’m going to find Annie.” Eddie headed toward the house. “I’ll clear the house.”

I nodded, my gun firm in my hands as I looked for any sign of Eva—anything out of place, any scuffle of footprints in the sand.

Phantom snorted and huffed in his pen. He knew something was wrong. He always knew where Eva was—he was bonded to her.

I contemplated for a moment, then I went to the paddock gate and flung it open. Phantom whinnied and tore out of the paddock, headed straight for a small shed behind the house.

“Follow him!” I shouted to Lucky and now Mason, who had joined in the search. The rest were on gate shifts or working at the cabins. They wouldn’t get here in time. “Don’t shoot the horse!”