Chapter 6 - THE WATCH
Daisy slapped Luca.
The sound cracked through the room.
Nobody moved.
Luca touched his cheek.
He didn’t look angry.
“I deserved that.”
“You stole it from my brother while he was lying broken in a hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Miller was looking for it.”
“That makes it better?”
“No.”
Daisy’s voice shook.
“You watched me spend nine months wondering how to pay for Leo’s therapy while you carried something my father died protecting.”
“I didn’t know what was inside.”
“You could have given it back.”
“I should have.”
Matteo’s expression was colder than Daisy had ever seen.
“Why didn’t you?”
Luca looked at Vincent.
“Because I thought it could keep him alive.”
“Leo?” Daisy asked.
“Matteo.”
Silence.
Luca finally told the whole story.
Nine months earlier, he had gone to the warehouse because Vincent ordered him to move police evidence boxes before Matteo discovered them.
He knew Vincent was hiding financial crimes.
He didn’t know Miller intended to chase Leo.
After the crash, Luca reached the hospital before Miller.
He saw Thomas Gallagher’s name engraved on the back of Leo’s watch.
He remembered Vincent searching for Thomas’s property years earlier.
“So you took it,” Daisy said.
“Yes.”
“Then you lied to everyone.”
“Yes.”
No excuses.
That somehow made Daisy angrier and less angry at the same time.
Luca placed the watch in her palm.
“Whatever happens next, it belongs to you.”
Daisy turned it over.
The engraving was worn.
T.G. — TIME TELLS WHAT MEN WON’T.
Her father used to say that.
She remembered him sitting at the kitchen table every Sunday, tiny tools spread over a white towel.
He would open the watch.
Clean it.
Oil it.
Put it back together.
Even when it worked perfectly.
Daisy pressed the release.
The rear case opened.
Nothing.
Matteo examined it.
“Second plate.”
He used the tip of a pocketknife.
A thin brass panel lifted.
Beneath it was a folded square of onion-skin paper.
Daisy stopped breathing.
She removed it.
The final page.
Twenty-four years hidden inside her father’s watch.
Names filled both sides.
Dates.
Amounts.
Then one handwritten sentence.
IF I AM KILLED, H.M. AUTHORIZED IT WITH V.R.’S ACCOUNT, WITHOUT V.R.’S KNOWLEDGE.
Daisy frowned.
“H.M.”
Luca whispered, “Harrison Miller?”
Vincent shook his head.
“He was barely out of high school.”
Matteo looked toward the older entries.
“Miller’s father.”
Vincent’s face hardened.
“Henry Miller.”
Detective Harrison Miller’s father.
The man Thomas’s cassette had already placed inside the corruption network.
Daisy kept reading.
Henry Miller had ordered Thomas’s death.
But he had used Vincent’s account to pay for it.
For twenty-four years, everyone had assumed Vincent was responsible.
Even Vincent apparently believed Carlo had suspected him.
Matteo looked at his uncle.
“You spent your life fighting my father because you thought he blamed you.”
“He did blame me.”
“He was wrong.”
Vincent laughed bitterly.
“So was I.”
That was the reversal Daisy hadn’t expected.
Vincent had committed plenty of crimes.
He had protected corruption.
He had helped cover Leo’s accident.
But he had not killed Thomas Gallagher.
And someone had deliberately allowed him to carry the blame.
Daisy looked at the bottom of the page.
Another note.
Written later.
Different handwriting.
Her mother’s.
Henry is dead. His son found the page existed. Carlo says Harrison has begun searching. If he ever gets close, the evidence goes public.
Daisy stared at the date.
Seven years ago.
One year before her mother died.
She looked at Rosa.
“My mother knew Miller was looking?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“Because you were twenty-three and finally building a life that had nothing to do with this family.”
Daisy’s eyes burned.
“She died without telling me anything.”
“She died believing silence kept you safe.”
Daisy looked down.
For the first time, she understood her parents’ lies differently.
Not harmless.
Not fair.
But not betrayal.
Fear.
Love.
Bad decisions made by frightened people.
Matteo picked up the final page.
“This proves Henry Miller ordered Thomas killed. It doesn’t prove Harrison caused Leo’s crash.”
“No,” Daisy said.
Leo still needed justice.
Luca spoke.
“The phone does.”
They all turned.
“The video?”
“Not just the video.”
Luca explained that the cracked phone had automatically uploaded short audio fragments whenever it connected to warehouse Wi-Fi.
Matteo frowned.
“Where?”
“A freight server.”
“Whose?”
Luca looked at him.
“Yours.”
Matteo understood immediately.
Raven Industrial Transport.
The company whose stolen truck hit Leo.
They drove to Raven’s main office.
Matteo’s security chief pulled archived server data.
Most had been deleted.
But one audio file survived.
Timestamp: twelve minutes before Leo’s crash.
Miller’s voice.
“Truck’s ready.”
Then Vincent.
“What truck?”
Daisy looked sharply at him.
On the recording, Vincent sounded genuinely confused.
Miller continued.
“The Raven truck. We make the kid look like he ran a light, take the phone, end this.”
Vincent shouted:
“No. Nobody touches the boy.”
Daisy looked at Vincent.
His face was stone.
Then another voice.
Luca.
“If you go near him, I tell Matteo everything.”
Miller laughed.
“You two still don’t understand who I work for.”
The recording ended.
Daisy stared at the computer.
“Who did he work for?”
Nobody knew.
Then Matteo’s security chief found another file.
A security access log.
Someone had entered Raven headquarters the night before Leo’s crash.
Used executive credentials.
Matteo’s credentials.
Matteo looked at the timestamp.
“I was in New York.”
His security chief nodded.
“I know.”
“Then who used my code?”
The man hesitated.
“Only two people had override access.”
“Me and who?”
The security chief swallowed.
“Your father.”
Matteo stared at him.
“My father was dead.”
“Yes.”
“For three years.”
“Yes.”
Daisy felt cold.
A dead man’s credentials had been used to steal the truck.
Then the security chief turned the monitor.
A grainy parking-garage photograph appeared.
The person entering Raven headquarters wore a dark coat and cap.
But his face was visible.
Daisy knew him.
So did Matteo.
Detective Miller.
Except Miller wasn’t alone.
Walking beside him was a woman.
Daisy leaned closer.
Her breath stopped.
She had seen that woman every day of her childhood.
May you like
Her mother.
Margaret Gallagher.
