Chapter 11 – The Watcher

The man stood in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of Henderson, watching through a broken window as Maya Caldwell’s Subaru pulled away from her house.

He didn’t need binoculars. He already knew where they were going.

He lowered the camera and set it beside the windowsill, next to a thermos and a pack of unfiltered cigarettes. The building smelled like wet insulation and bird droppings, but it was quiet. Safe. Forgotten. Just how he liked it.

He pulled a notebook from his coat pocket. It was worn, soft around the edges, filled with blocky handwriting and sketches copied from maps now long lost. The latest entry was scrawled hastily, underlined twice:

“They have the Dawes box. Confirmed.”

He flipped back a few pages, past notes on thrift store inventory, local cemetery plots, and surveillance logs on Maya’s research habits.

Ronny Ellis had been an unexpected variable.

He’d figured the old man was just poking around out of boredom. A retired history teacher with too much time and a soft spot for the past. But the man had a connection he hadn’t anticipated—Wayne Ellis.

That name had come up in one of the older testimonies. The ones his grandfather had never wanted in writing.

Too late for regrets now.

He scratched a short list across the margin of a page:

• Rayburn Creek – compromised
• Dawes barn – message delivered
• Target now aware they’re not alone
• Next move: intercept before Maxwell’s Café

He looked again at the crude map he’d left behind in the barn.

It had served its purpose. Rattled them. Shifted their footing.

Now came the next step: containment.

He opened his phone and tapped on a secure messaging app—one that wiped messages within 60 seconds of being read.

Stage Two.
They took the bait.
Meet me at the power station east of Evansville.
Tomorrow, 9 a.m.
Before they talk to Dawes.

He hit send.

Across town, in a dark sedan parked behind a shuttered gas station, someone else read the message, closed their phone, and started the engine.

Back in the warehouse, the man stood, slipped his notebook into his coat, and packed up the camera gear.

He left no fingerprints. No coffee cup. No cigarette butts.

He stepped out the back exit and locked it behind him.

Some truths, he knew, were worth killing again to protect.

And if they got too close to what was buried?

He’d make sure they never got a chance to dig any deeper.