The voice that whispered my name over the ship's intercom sounded frightened enough to make everyone in the wardroom look up.
"Sarah Owens."
A burst of static followed. Then a sharp click, as though someone had dropped a handset.
My brother stood beside the locked door with his hand still near the bolt. An hour earlier, Brandon had laughed at my uniform in front of his sailors. Now his emergency complaint against me glowed on the captain's tablet, and a drive recovered from his locker lay on the table between us.
Admiral Thomas Reed reached for the wardroom phone.
"Watch desk. Identify the station that just keyed the intercom."
A pause. The faint sound of voices came through the receiver.
"The engineering office, sir."
"Put the person on."
We waited. Outside, boots struck metal decking. Somewhere below us, a hatch slammed. Brandon watched the small black drive as though it might move on its own.
A young voice finally came through the phone. "Sir? This is Seaman Ellis."
"Why did you call for Admiral Owens?"
"I was trying to call the wardroom, sir. The handset slipped onto the public circuit." The sailor swallowed audibly. "I found something in the engine log. I thought she needed to know before anybody changed it."
Brandon gave a short, disbelieving laugh. "You're taking maintenance advice from a seaman who can't work a phone?"
Admiral Reed held up one finger, and Brandon went silent.
"Do not touch the log," Reed told Ellis. "Stay with it. Chief Bell is coming to you."
Marcus looked at me. I nodded. He took the drive and the handwritten note from the evidence envelope, slipped both into a clear evidence sleeve, and left the wardroom. The bolt turned behind him.
Brandon noticed. "If this is an investigation, shouldn't I have someone here with me?"
"You may request representation," Reed said. "Until then, you can stop talking."
For once, my brother listened.
I moved closer to the tablet. His complaint remained open beneath the photograph of my sealed inspection orders and the audio clip of a statement I had never made. The words in that clip were precise enough to sound official, but hearing my own voice issue an order I had not given had left a cold weight beneath my ribs.
"Who sent you that photograph?" I asked.
Brandon stared past me.
"It was taken aboard this ship," I said. "Before I arrived."
"I don't have to answer you."
"No. You don't."
That had always been the difficult part of dealing with Brandon. At our father's kitchen table, silence had let him turn any story his way. I could still hear Robert Owens asking whether my first command came with a private office, then laughing when Brandon said I must spend my days signing forms. I had learned not to argue there.
This was not our father's kitchen table. There was a sailor standing beside an engine log because he thought someone might change it.
Reed slid the tablet toward me. "Don't speculate, Admiral. Look at what he actually filed."
I scrolled past the accusation that I had threatened Brandon's career on the pier. His statement placed the threat at 8:02 that morning.
"That's before my inspection orders were logged with the base," I said.
"I made a mistake on the time," Brandon said quickly.
"You also wrote that I came aboard looking for you. I hadn't come aboard when you filed the first draft."
Reed turned to him. "You said you wanted representation. Request it now, if that's your choice."
Brandon's jaw worked. "I want it."
Reed called the watch desk and arranged for a legal officer to meet us. Then he set the tablet facedown. No one asked Brandon another question.
The wait lasted less than ten minutes. It felt longer because I could see the pier through a narrow window. Sailors still moved among the lines and bollards under the bright San Diego sun. From up here, nothing looked wrong with the Sterett. Her gray hull rose steady beside the pier, ready for the work that had been planned for her.
The legal officer arrived, spoke privately with Brandon in the passageway, and returned with him. Brandon's shoulders had lowered. He took a seat without looking at me.
Marcus came back a moment later with Seaman Ellis and an engineering logbook held inside a clear cover. Ellis was the sailor I had noticed near the safety rail, the one carrying a clipboard while Brandon made his joke about my uniform. I remembered him glancing at my shoulder when Brandon grabbed it.
Now his hands shook around the clipboard's metal clip.
"You did the right thing calling," I told him.
