Chapter 4 - THE WATCH THAT STOPPED AT 8:05
My father's watch had stopped at 8:05.
I knew that because my mother had told me.
Eighteen months earlier, after Dad's funeral, she'd placed his stainless-steel wristwatch in a small velvet box and said it had stopped the morning he died.
“Some things just know,” she'd whispered.
I remembered touching the cracked crystal.
The hands pointed to 8:05.
Now I looked at the photograph from Nathan.
The same time my sister threw the drink.
The same time the security camera recorded the attack.
For a moment, I couldn't make the numbers mean anything.
Then I remembered something else.
Dad's watch was automatic.
It wasn't supposed to stop permanently at one meaningful minute.
It would stop when it ran out of stored energy, unless damaged.
And Dad always wound or wore it.
I went to my bedroom closet.
The velvet box was still there.
Empty.
I searched the drawer beneath it.
Nothing.
Then I remembered lending the watch to my mother for a memorial display at Kendall's engagement party.
She'd promised to return it.
She never had.
Detective Ruiz met Nathan and me at the police station that evening.
Nathan handed her the unopened blue envelope.
Inside were three items.
A photograph of my father standing beside his truck.
A letter addressed to me.
And a copy of a notarized property agreement.
The photograph made my breath catch.
Dad stood in front of the old house in his faded work coat, holding the stainless-steel watch up to the camera.
On the back, he'd written:
Always check what time people say something happened.
I turned it over twice.
The photograph had been printed shortly before his stroke.
The letter was worse.
Not because it contained some dramatic declaration.
Because it sounded exactly like him.
Sloan,
If you're reading this because your mother told you I left nothing, then something has gone badly wrong.
I love your mother. I love Kendall. But loving someone does not mean ignoring what they do with money.
I discovered transfers that were never properly explained. I've been trying to separate a bad business decision from something more deliberate.
You were always the careful one. I wish I hadn't needed you to be.
Don't let anyone convince you that asking questions is betrayal.
Love, Dad.
I couldn't finish reading it aloud.
Ruiz waited.
Nathan stared at the table.
The property agreement concerned Dad's house and a parcel of commercial land behind his former workshop.
It appeared to reserve a portion of the property proceeds for me.
But one page was missing.
The signature page.
Ruiz examined the packet.
“Do you know why your father would put this in Nathan's possession?”
I shook my head.
Nathan answered.
“He didn't. Kendall did.”
He explained the engagement-party package.
Ruiz asked when Kendall had given it to him.
“April nineteenth.”
I looked up.
The day my wrench charm vanished.
Nathan continued.
“She said it was a surprise for Sloan. Something she wanted to give her after the wedding.”
I almost smiled.
Kendall had always loved surprises.
Especially ones that worked better when nobody asked questions.
Ruiz placed the documents into evidence sleeves.
Then she asked Nathan for the access records to his office safe.
He agreed.
Before we left, I asked about the watch.
Ruiz listened carefully.
“Do you know where it is now?”
“My mother had it.”
“And the significance of 8:05?”
“I don't know.”
She looked at me.
“Then don't decide what it means yet.”
That was good advice.
I hated it.
The next afternoon, my aunt Patricia came to my apartment.
She brought homemade soup and an expression I remembered from childhood.
The expression she wore when something needed saying but nobody wanted to be first.
She sat at my kitchen table.
“I should have told you something after your father died.”
I waited.
“Diane borrowed money.”
I looked at her.
“How much?”
“More than I could give.”
“When?”
“Before Martin's stroke.”
My stomach tightened.
“Why?”
Patricia pressed her hands together.
“Kendall was in trouble with a business partner.”
“Elliot Vale?”
She looked startled.
“You know about him?”
I nodded.
Patricia exhaled.
“Diane said Kendall had signed guarantees for a property deal. If it failed, creditors could come after her personally.”
“How much?”
“She wouldn't tell me.”
“Did Dad know?”
“Eventually.”
That word hurt.
Eventually.
As though the truth had been walking toward him slowly enough that everyone thought they could outrun it.
Patricia continued.
“Martin wasn't angry about helping Kendall. He was angry because nobody would explain where the money went.”
“Did he think Elliot stole it?”
“I don't know.”
She looked toward my father's photograph on the shelf.
“But he told me one thing before his stroke.”
“What?”
“He said, 'If anyone tells Sloan I sold the house to cover my debts, tell her to check the county records herself.'”
I closed my eyes.
“Why didn't you tell me?”
Patricia began crying.
“Because your mother said the estate was settled, and I didn't want to make your grief worse.”
I sat very still.
Then I reached across the table.
She took my hand.
For the first time since the wedding, someone in my family had admitted that silence could be a mistake.
That evening, I pulled the county property records.
The old house had not been sold in the ordinary way my mother described.
It had been transferred into a trust.
The trust then used the property as security for a commercial loan.
And the trustee was Diane Mercer.
The filing contained a signature attributed to me.
I enlarged it.
My name looked nearly correct.
But there was one detail wrong.
I always crossed the number seven in handwritten dates.
My father had taught me that when I was little because his supplier invoices were often smudged.
The signature date showed an uncrossed seven.
Someone had tried to imitate my handwriting.
I printed the document.
Then I called Ruiz.
Before she answered, my doorbell rang.
Not an unknown visitor.
Nathan.
He stood outside holding the velvet watch box.
His face was pale.
“Elliot gave this to Kendall.”
I took the box.
Inside was Dad's watch.
The hands still pointed to 8:05.
But the back had been opened.
And folded beneath the watch was a narrow strip of paper.
I pulled it out.
There was one sentence in my father's handwriting.
May you like
The first signature was mine. The second one was never Sloan's.
Then Nathan said quietly, “Sloan, there's a recording on the watch. Elliot told me your father made it the night he confronted your mother.”
