When a bankrupt former mentee working as a discreet housekeeper hides her ex-mentor's starving seven-year-old secret niece holding a $4.5 million blackmail watch, she triggers an underworld war tha...
The attic was stifling, the air thick with dust and ancient memories. Maya had finally drifted into a fitful sleep, her small chest rising and falling beneath the heavy shawl. The pocket watch lay on the floor beside her, its metallic gleam muted by the shadows. I still couldn’t open it.
Restless, and needing information, I crept back down the service stairs. The clinking of cutlery and the murmur of conversation were louder now. I navigated the familiar back passages towards the dining room. The service pantry, with its narrow slit of a window overlooking the dining room, offered the perfect vantage point.
I pressed my ear to the cool wood of the pantry door, straining to hear over the clatter of plates.
“The old man’s not getting any younger,” Richard’s voice, smooth and calculating, carried clearly. “And frankly, this estate is too exposed.”
“Exposure isn’t the problem,” Clara snapped, her tone sharp as broken glass. “It’s loose ends. Julian, you still haven’t explained why your sister’s lawyer was snooping around weeks before her ‘accident’.”
A fork scraped loudly against porcelain. Julian’s voice was a low growl.
“That’s irrelevant. She was estranged. Always a troublemaker. And paranoid.”
“Paranoid or not,” Clara pressed, “her ‘accident’ came at a convenient time for certain… financial arrangements. We need to find those documents, Julian. Before someone else does.”
My breath hitched. Documents. So this wasn’t just about general security. They were looking for something specific. Something Julian’s late sister might have left behind.
“Sarah’s too observant,” Richard added, his voice dropping slightly, but I still caught it. “She’s been with Julian too long. Seen too much.”
“She’s a housekeeper, Richard,” Julian scoffed. “And a recovering addict. She’s easily discredited.”
Clara laughed, a chilling, humorless sound.
“Perhaps. But we can’t take chances. I propose we systematically search every room in the house tomorrow. Start with the servant’s quarters. Leave no stone unturned.”
“And Sarah?” Richard asked.
“Isolate her,” Clara said, her voice laced with venom. “Give her enough busy work to keep her out of the way. If she resists, if she even looks like she’s hiding something… well, we have ways of making her cooperate.”
My stomach clenched. They were going to search my room. Every room. And they clearly suspected I might be involved, or at least in the way. They wouldn’t find Maya, but if they found the watch, everything would unravel.
I pulled away from the door, my heart pounding a frantic rhythm against my ribs. The dinner conversation continued, a polite facade over a viper’s nest. I had to get back to Maya. And I had to figure out that watch before Clara started her “systematic search.”
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