Chapter 4 - THE WATCH THAT STOPPED AT 2:17
“Who was helping Conrad?”
Ronan's question filled Dr. Ellis's office.
Eleanor Blackthorne stared at the broken wristwatch in her palm.
Then she said something I never expected.
“I was.”
Ronan stepped away from her.
For a moment, he looked as though someone had struck him.
“You helped him steal my daughter?”
“No.”
“Then explain.”
Eleanor closed her fingers around the watch.
“I helped him move money. I didn't know he was stealing children until it was too late.”
I wanted to believe her.
But I remembered waking in Switzerland with an empty hospital crib.
Trusting wealthy strangers had already cost me two years with my daughter.
“What money?” I asked.
Eleanor looked toward the window.
“The Blackthorne Family Trust financed Celeste's foundation. Conrad said a government investigation might freeze its accounts. He convinced me to approve emergency transfers.”
“Seventy-eight million dollars,” Ronan said.
Eleanor nodded.
“I signed the first authorization.”
Ronan's face hardened.
“And then?”
“I discovered the money had gone into a private company. Celeste discovered it, too.”
Eleanor placed the watch on the desk.
“Conrad told us he had made investments without proper disclosure. He promised to return the money.”
“And you believed him?” Ronan demanded.
“I wanted to.”
Those four words sounded painfully human.
Eleanor had protected her family's reputation for decades.
Now that instinct had helped destroy it.
“Celeste started collecting evidence,” she continued. “Three days before the delivery, she gave me her watch.”
I frowned.
“Why a watch?”
“Because its back had been repaired. She said there was something beneath the lining.”
Ronan examined it.
A tiny seam crossed the leather strap.
He carefully loosened the stitching with Dr. Ellis's permission to use a small pair of scissors.
Inside lay a narrow strip of folded paper.
Celeste's handwriting covered both sides.
One sentence was underlined.
If Conrad claims I authorized the placement, check the blue blanket.
My pulse quickened.
The blue blanket from the nursery photograph.
“What placement?” Ronan asked.
Eleanor shook her head.
“I never found out.”
“Where is the blanket?”
“At the Swiss clinic, as far as I know.”
Ronan looked exhausted.
“You had this for two years.”
“I was afraid opening it would reveal something I couldn't undo.”
He placed the watch on the desk.
“You should have been afraid of what silence would do.”
Eleanor began crying.
But Ronan didn't comfort her.
Not yet.
Dr. Ellis quietly returned to the question that mattered most.
“Mrs. Blackthorne, Lily needs stability. Whatever family dispute exists, you cannot continue making decisions without clarifying her guardianship.”
Eleanor wiped her eyes.
“She was transferred yesterday to a temporary family residence outside Chicago.”
“Give me the address,” Ronan said.
Eleanor hesitated.
“I want to speak with the residence first.”
“No.”
He looked directly at her.
“You've made enough decisions without me.”
She finally wrote an address on the back of her activity schedule.
It was a small house in Oak Park, operated by a licensed foster-care organization.
Then Dr. Ellis opened Lily's medical file.
“There's another matter.”
She placed a developmental assessment between us.
Lily's earliest records reported frequent night terrors.
For months, she had refused to sleep unless someone placed two stuffed animals beside her.
“That's common in children experiencing separation,” Dr. Ellis explained.
But Lily's latest drawings showed something unusual.
Every picture contained two little girls.
One wore blue.
One wore yellow.
Sometimes they stood together.
Sometimes a heavy black line separated them.
I stared at the drawings.
“Did anyone ask her about them?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Dr. Ellis turned another page.
The child had named one figure Lily.
The other was called Mimi.
Ronan looked at me.
“Mira?”
“Maybe,” I whispered.
The doctor explained that Lily had recently begun using short sentences, though she still became frightened around unfamiliar men.
“She responds very strongly to a particular lullaby,” Dr. Ellis added.
Ronan looked up.
“Which lullaby?”
She played a short recording.
A woman's soft voice filled the office.
I recognized the melody immediately.
It was the same tune I had hummed throughout my pregnancy.
A Swiss nursery song.
But Ronan went pale for a different reason.
“That's Celeste.”
The recording ended.
Dr. Ellis nodded.
“Your mother provided it.”
Eleanor covered her face.
Ronan looked from her to the phone.
“If Celeste recorded that for Lily, she knew something before she died.”
He replayed the recording.
This time, I heard a faint sound after the final note.
A woman's voice.
Not Celeste's.
“Make sure the second baby stays with Mercer.”
Eleanor jerked upright.
“That voice.”
Ronan paused the recording.
“Whose voice?”
His mother looked at the floor.
“Helena Weiss.”
The Swiss doctor who had told me my daughter was dead.
Then Dr. Ellis received an internal message from the Oak Park residence.
She read it twice.
Her expression changed.
“Mr. Blackthorne, Lily was collected this morning for a scheduled family visit.”
“By whom?”
Dr. Ellis swallowed.
“Her temporary guardian signed her out.”
She turned the screen toward us.
May you like
The guardian's name was Dr. Helena Weiss.
And the destination was listed as O'Hare International Airport.
