Chapter 4 - The Maid's Real Name
Sadie woke shortly after dawn.
Her arm had been properly stabilized, and the doctor had explained the next steps for treatment. The pain was still severe, but at least she no longer had to pretend it was a cramp.
Declan sat in a chair beside the window.
“You haven't slept,” she said.
“Neither have you.”
“I'm used to it.”
“That isn't something to be proud of.”
She almost smiled.
Then she remembered the photograph.
“Did you find the men?”
“Some of them.”
“Are they dead?”
“No.”
Sadie looked at him, startled.
“Your people don't kill everyone who crosses them?”
“Some people assume we do.”
“And you?”
Declan considered the question.
“I've done things I'm not proud of. But I won't turn your pain into an excuse to do something reckless.”
She looked down at her bandaged arm.
“My father used to say that good people could do terrible things when they were afraid.”
“Your father sounds wise.”
“He was a mechanic. He died when I was twelve.”
Declan waited.
Sadie drew a slow breath.
“My mother disappeared before that. My father raised Jamie and me by himself. When he died, I was old enough to work, but Jamie was still a child. I took whatever jobs I could find.”
“How did you end up at the warehouse?”
“I cleaned offices for a contractor. They moved me between buildings. I didn't know who owned them.”
She hesitated.
“Until I saw the ledger.”
“What ledger?”
Sadie closed her eyes.
“The one they wanted me to forget.”
She explained that she had found a small black notebook inside the metal cabinet. It contained handwritten entries matching payments she had overheard the men discussing.
Some entries appeared to involve shipments that had never been declared. Others listed payments to people who had no legitimate reason to receive them.
She had photographed several pages with her phone.
Then she had heard footsteps.
She ran.
The men caught her outside.
“They took my phone,” she whispered. “They said the photographs were gone. But I had already sent one to someone.”
“Who?”
She looked frightened again.
“My father’s old friend. A man named Peter Shaw. He told me years ago that if I ever found anything connected to the Watcher family, I should contact him.”
Declan's eyes narrowed.
“Peter Shaw was a federal investigator.”
Sadie nodded.
“He retired after my father died. He said he owed him a favor.”
“Did you send him the photograph?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“The morning before they broke my arm.”
Declan stood.
“Did he respond?”
“He told me not to go home.”
“Did you listen?”
“No.”
Her voice broke.
“I thought if I acted normal, they would leave Jamie alone.”
Declan looked at her for a long moment.
Then he said, “You have spent years protecting your brother by making yourself invisible.”
Sadie stared at him.
“That's what people like us do.”
“Not anymore.”
She shook her head.
“You can't promise that.”
“No,” he admitted. “I can't promise the world will be kind. But I can promise that you won't have to face this alone.”
She wanted to believe him.
But belief was a luxury she had never been able to afford.
Then Declan asked a question that made her blood run cold.
“Sadie, what was your father's full name?”
“Daniel Miller.”
Declan's face changed.
He knew that name.
Daniel Miller had been the accountant who exposed the first financial scandal in the Watcher shipping business fifteen years earlier.
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He had died in what police called a workplace accident.
And Victor Watcher had been the last person to meet him alive.
