Chapter 6 - THE WATCH THAT STOPPED
Sloan read the date again.
Three days before the home pregnancy test that changed her life.
“This is impossible.”
Elias nodded.
“It should be.”
Caspian's anger had gone beyond shouting.
That frightened everyone.
“Explain.”
Elias spoke carefully.
“Four months ago I discovered someone had accessed Sloan's hospital employee file.”
“Why were you looking?”
“Because Malcolm asked whether Sloan was Thomas Hale's daughter.”
Caspian's jaw tightened.
“You went behind my back.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Malcolm told me your father had enemies who would come after Thomas's family if old records resurfaced.”
Sloan stared at him.
“So you investigated me.”
“To protect you.”
“Everybody keeps saying that right before admitting they lied.”
No one answered.
She looked at the forged laboratory record.
“Who created this?”
Elias pointed to an authorization code.
“Someone with administrator access.”
Sloan knew exactly one person who had that access when she worked in Boston.
Her former nursing director.
Marianne Vale.
A woman Sloan had trusted for seven years.
Caspian recognized the name.
“You mentioned her.”
“She wrote my recommendation for Providence.”
Everyone went still.
Sloan understood first.
“She knew where I went.”
Elias nodded.
“And she knew who your father was.”
Malcolm sat heavily.
“Marianne's father worked for Caspian's father.”
Sloan almost laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the walls of her old life were collapsing so quickly she could barely recognize what had once been real.
“Why forge a pregnancy test?”
Daniel answered.
“To create leverage.”
“Against Caspian?”
“Against the baby.”
Caspian crossed the room in two steps.
Daniel didn't retreat.
“Careful,” Daniel said. “I'm not threatening your son. I'm telling you why someone else might.”
Sloan placed both hands over her belly.
The baby moved.
A strong little kick.
Her fear crystallized into anger.
“Enough.”
Every man stopped.
“I am done standing in rooms while people discuss my child like an asset.”
She looked at Caspian.
“You want to help?”
“Yes.”
“Then take me to Boston.”
He stared.
“No.”
Sloan almost smiled.
“There he is.”
“Sloan—”
“My father's watch is there.”
“I'll retrieve it.”
“From my apartment?”
“Yes.”
“You already searched it once.”
His expression showed immediate regret.
She continued.
“This is my father's secret. My history. My son. I'm going.”
Caspian studied her.
Then nodded once.
“We go together.”
It was a two-hour drive.
Sloan sat in the back of an SUV beside Caspian.
Neither spoke for the first thirty minutes.
Finally he said, “I never ordered anyone killed that night.”
Sloan turned.
“What?”
“The conversation you overheard.”
She felt cold.
“You said to make an example of him.”
“I did.”
“What does that mean in your world?”
“He was stealing payroll from dockworkers. Men who couldn't afford missing checks.”
“And?”
“I ordered him fired publicly and made him repay every dollar.”
Sloan stared.
“You expect me to believe that?”
“No.”
Caspian looked out the window.
“I expect you to decide for yourself after you know the whole thing.”
“Why didn't you explain six months ago?”
“You disappeared before sunrise.”
She looked down.
He wasn't accusing.
That made it worse.
“I was afraid.”
“I know.”
“Of you.”
“I know that too.”
Caspian's voice cracked slightly.
“And that's the part I can't forgive myself for.”
Sloan turned toward the window.
For the first time, the reason she had run felt less solid.
Not wrong.
But incomplete.
Her Boston apartment looked almost exactly as she'd left it.
Dust covered the shelves.
Caspian had continued paying the rent.
Sloan discovered that only when the superintendent recognized him.
“You kept it?”
Caspian shrugged.
“I couldn't throw away the possibility you'd come home.”
She didn't know what to say.
Her father's belongings were in a box at the top of her closet.
Sloan opened it.
Photographs.
His old medical badge.
Birthday cards.
And the brass watch.
It had stopped at 2:17.
The same time it always showed.
Caspian examined the back.
There was a tiny indentation.
Sloan remembered the pendant.
She pressed its narrow edge against the indentation.
The watch opened.
Inside wasn't a key.
It was a tiny photograph.
Thomas Hale stood beside Evelyn Reed.
Between them was a boy around twelve.
Caspian.
On the back, Thomas had written:
He must never inherit the lie.
Beneath the photograph was a small brass key.
Malcolm had given them the bank name.
The box was still active.
They reached the bank minutes before closing.
Inside the safe-deposit room, Sloan inserted the key.
The box opened.
No cash.
No criminal ledger.
Only a sealed envelope and an old cassette tape.
Caspian opened the envelope.
His mother's handwriting covered three pages.
He read silently.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He handed Sloan the letter.
Near the bottom, Evelyn had written:
If Caspian ever learns the truth, tell him Thomas was not protecting Julian from his father alone. He was protecting both boys from me.
Sloan looked up.
Caspian's face had gone pale.
Then they noticed the label on the cassette.
Two words.
FOR CASPIAN.
And beneath them, in Thomas Hale's handwriting:
May you like
Your mother started it.
---
