Chapter 4 - What My Sister Knew
Declan burned the note.
Not before Mason photographed it, bagged the original, checked it for fingerprints, and documented every detail.
But after that, Declan carried it to my kitchen sink, struck a match, and watched the corner catch fire.
I stared at him.
“That was evidence.”
“Evidence has copies.”
The flames crawled across the words.
STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.
“What are you doing?”
Declan dropped the burning paper into the sink.
“Taking away its power.”
I wanted to tell him that paper wasn’t the thing with power.
Fear was.
Fear had been controlling me for years.
Caleb used it.
His mysterious employers used it.
My own imagination had used it better than anyone.
And now someone had entered my home and Declan’s mansion within hours.
Someone wanted me terrified.
It was working.
“I’m not going back there,” I said.
Declan looked at me.
“Back where?”
“Your house.”
His brow lowered.
“Why?”
“Someone got into my room there.”
“Which means security needs to be fixed.”
“It means being near you isn’t protecting me.”
I swallowed.
“It might be making me a bigger target.”
Declan’s face remained unreadable.
Mason spoke from the doorway.
“She has a point.”
Declan turned.
Mason continued carefully.
“Until we know who inside our organization is compromised, the mansion may be less secure than another location.”
“Where?”
Mason glanced at me.
“I have a safe apartment downtown.”
Declan immediately said, “No.”
I folded my arms.
“You don’t actually decide where I sleep.”
He looked at me.
“I’m beginning to understand that.”
“Good.”
“You’re still not staying alone.”
“I didn’t say I was.”
That seemed to surprise him.
Truthfully, it surprised me too.
Accepting help felt dangerous.
Not because Declan frightened me.
Because I had spent years believing help always came with a bill.
Sophie’s treatment had taught me that.
Hospitals billed kindness by the hour.
Caleb billed desperation forever.
Even friends eventually stopped answering when grief lasted too long.
Declan Walsh offered protection without naming a price.
I didn’t know what to do with that.
Mason sent a team to his downtown apartment.
Meanwhile we searched my place for anything the intruder missed.
Almost nothing remained.
Then Declan noticed a framed photograph hanging crooked beside my kitchen window.
Sophie and me at Coney Island when we were teenagers.
“Was that always there?”
“Yes.”
“Take it down.”
“Why?”
“Because whoever searched this place removed everything else.”
I lifted the frame.
The backing looked normal.
Declan ran a finger along one corner.
Then he pushed.
A strip of cardboard separated.
Something thin slid out.
A receipt.
Not a storage receipt.
A library receipt.
Grayhaven Central Library.
Sophie had checked out three books during the month before she died.
I stared at the titles.
One about forensic accounting.
One about shell corporations.
One about municipal property records.
Mason whistled softly.
“Your sister was investigating them.”
“She was a preschool teacher.”
“Apparently she had other hobbies.”
I remembered Sophie sitting at our mother’s kitchen table years earlier, balancing household bills because she loved numbers.
“She wanted to study accounting before Mom died.”
Declan took a photograph of the receipt.
“Dates?”
“Two years ago.”
Mason searched his phone.
“The library keeps computer access logs for twelve months, not two years.”
“Maybe she left something there.”
“Like what?”
I turned the receipt over.
Nothing.
Then I noticed tiny marks beside the due dates.
Numbers.
3-14.
7-22.
9-8.
At first they looked random.
Then I remembered.
“Sophie used book codes.”
Declan looked at me.
“What?”
“When we were kids.”
I almost smiled.
“We shared a room. Mom wouldn’t let us have phones after ten, so Sophie made codes using books. First number was page, second was line.”
Mason looked again.
“These could be references.”
“To those books?”
“Maybe.”
“But we don’t have the exact editions.”
Declan glanced at the receipt.
“The library does.”
At four-thirty in the morning, Mason called someone powerful enough to convince Grayhaven Central Library to open early.
By five-fifteen we stood inside a silent building smelling of paper and old carpet.
The head librarian looked unhappy.
She became significantly less unhappy when Declan donated fifty thousand dollars to the children’s literacy program before we entered the archive room.
“You bribed a librarian,” I whispered.
“I donated.”
“At five in the morning.”
“Children read at all hours.”
I stared at him.
He almost smiled.
The three books Sophie had borrowed were still in circulation.
The librarian found matching editions.
We started with 3-14.
Page three.
Line fourteen.
The sentence contained the words ownership can be deliberately obscured.
7-22 led to a sentence about beneficial owners.
9-8 produced follow recurring transfers rather than company names.
Mason wrote everything down.
“It’s a message.”
“Yes,” I said.
Sophie had been telling someone how to investigate.
But who?
We checked inside the covers.
Margins.
Dust jackets.
Nothing.
Then Declan opened the forensic accounting book and held it toward the light.
A page near the back was thicker than the others.
Two sheets had been glued together.
Mason carefully separated them.
A piece of paper fell onto the table.
My heart hammered.
Sophie’s handwriting.
Real handwriting.
Her backward capital B.
Her nervous little circles over every i.
I touched the edge.
For a moment, I forgot Declan.
Forgot Caleb.
Forgot debt.
I saw my sister lying in a hospital bed, asking me whether I believed people could still fix their mistakes.
I had said yes because she needed me to.
Maybe she had been talking about herself.
Declan read over my shoulder.
The note contained company names.
Blackwater Holdings.
Northline Consulting.
Marrow Street Services.
Lakeshore Asset Recovery.
At the bottom Sophie had written:
They all send money to JV-17. If anything happens, find the ledger before Julian does. C.M. knows where the key is. D.W. does not know.
My stomach dropped.
“D.W.”
Declan stared at the initials.
“Declan Walsh.”
I looked at him.
“She believed you.”
His expression tightened.
Sophie had specifically written that Declan did not know.
For the first time, we had proof—at least from my sister—that the crime had been hidden from him.
Mason pointed to another section.
“JV-17.”
“Julian Vane?” I asked.
“Maybe.”
“Or an account.”
Declan’s eyes stayed on Sophie’s final sentence.
“C.M. knows where the key is.”
Caleb Morrow.
A man who had disappeared.
A man who had entered the music box.
A man who knew about the storage locker.
I turned the page over.
There was more.
One final line.
Nora can never know until she is safe.
Tears blurred the words.
My sister had been dying.
And somehow she had still been protecting me.
I covered my mouth.
Declan quietly moved away, giving me space.
That small act nearly broke me more than comfort would have.
For two years, I had believed Sophie left me nothing but bills and grief.
Now I realized she had left me a trail.
A trail someone was terrified I would finish.
Mason’s phone vibrated.
He checked it.
Then his entire expression changed.
“What?”
Declan asked.
Mason looked at me.
“We found Caleb.”
“Where?”
“St. Vincent’s Hospital.”
My heart jumped.
“Is he hurt?”
“No.”
Mason hesitated.
“He checked himself in twenty minutes ago claiming someone tried to kill him.”
Declan’s face hardened.
“Did he name them?”
“Yes.”
The silence stretched.
“Who?”
Mason turned the phone so we could see the report.
Caleb Morrow had accused Declan Walsh.
May you like
And by six in the morning, every major news outlet in Grayhaven was already running the headline.
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