Chapter 3 - THE WATCH THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Emily stared at Julian.
“What crash?”
Nobody moved.
Julian looked genuinely surprised.
“You don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Sofia died in a car accident.”
Emily looked at the watch in his hand.
“When?”
“Six years ago.”
Her stomach tightened.
“Where?”
“The West Side Highway.”
Rosa whispered, “Julian.”
But Emily had already calculated the dates.
Six years ago she had been working two jobs and sleeping four hours a night while trying to pay the final hospital bills from her mother’s illness.
Six years ago, she had received an envelope with no return address.
Inside had been five thousand dollars.
She had sent it back.
The money had arrived again two weeks later through a cashier’s check.
She had never learned who sent it.
“What was Sofia doing with my father’s watch?”
Julian looked at Rosa.
Rosa stood.
“I need to put Lily to bed.”
“No.”
The word came from Lily.
Everyone looked at her.
She had gone very still.
“I’m not tired.”
“You’re seven.”
“I’m seven when I’m awake too.”
Despite everything, Emily almost smiled.
Rosa didn’t.
“Lily.”
The child looked toward the pocket watch.
“Was that Mommy’s?”
Julian knelt beside her.
“She had it for a little while.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Lily considered that.
Then she surprised him.
“You say that when you really mean you don’t want to tell me.”
Julian flinched.
Emily saw it.
So did Rosa.
Julian touched his daughter’s cheek.
“Tonight I actually don’t know.”
Lily looked at him for another second.
Then she nodded.
“Okay.”
Rosa took her upstairs.
The moment they disappeared, Emily turned on Julian.
“You knew my father.”
“I knew of him.”
“Your company sent him to prison.”
“My father ran Mercer Maritime then.”
“You testified.”
Julian’s face tightened.
Emily had remembered the newspaper clipping only after seeing him at the table.
Twenty-five-year-old Julian Mercer leaving federal court.
Young.
Cold.
Certain.
“My mother kept every article,” Emily said. “She used to read them like eventually one would change.”
Julian did not deny it.
“I signed a statement.”
“You said my father had access to the accounts.”
“He did.”
“You said he acted alone.”
“That was what the audit showed.”
“And you believed it.”
“Yes.”
Emily looked at him with disgust.
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
That answer stopped her.
Not because it defended him.
Because it didn’t.
Julian placed the watch on the table.
“I was twenty-five and arrogant enough to believe expensive accountants couldn’t lie if they worked for my family.”
“My father died because people like you didn’t ask questions.”
“I know.”
“No. You know the sentence. That’s different.”
The muscles in Julian’s jaw tightened.
Before he could answer, small footsteps came down the stairs.
Lily appeared carrying something almost as large as she was.
A red coat.
Not hers.
An adult woman’s coat.
Rosa followed, looking furious and frightened.
“Lily Mercer.”
“You said Mommy had the watch in her coat.”
Julian’s face drained.
Lily held it out.
“So maybe the coat knows.”
Children could make the impossible sound obvious.
Julian took it.
His fingers shook once.
That was the first time Emily saw his hands betray him.
“Sofia wore this the night she died?”
“Yes,” Rosa said.
“I kept it because I couldn’t throw it away.”
Julian stared at her.
“You told me the police never returned it.”
Rosa’s silence answered him.
“Mother.”
“I couldn’t let you see it.”
“Why?”
“I thought you would destroy yourself looking for explanations that weren’t there.”
Emily watched something cold settle between mother and son.
Julian examined the pockets.
Empty.
Lily touched the lining.
“There’s paper.”
Rosa went pale.
“Lily—”
The girl pressed her fingers against the inside seam.
Something crackled.
Julian found a small tear near the stitching and carefully reached inside.
He removed a faded rectangle of thick paper.
A coat-check ticket.
Emily recognized the gold lettering immediately.
BELL & ROWAN.
Her restaurant.
The number beneath it was 214.
On the back, in blue ink, someone had written two words.
Emily Hart?
Emily sat down.
Julian read it twice.
“That’s Sofia’s handwriting.”
“How would your wife know my name?”
“I don’t know.”
Rosa sat slowly.
Emily looked at her.
“You know something.”
Rosa shook her head.
“Not enough.”
“That means yes.”
Rosa closed her eyes.
“Sofia started asking questions about Patrick Hart approximately seven months before she died.”
Emily’s heart began pounding.
“Why?”
“She found inconsistencies in old Mercer records.”
Julian turned sharply.
“You never told me.”
“Sofia asked me not to.”
“My wife was investigating my family and you kept it from me?”
“She thought you would confront Dominic.”
“My father was already dead.”
“Your uncle wasn’t.”
Victor Mercer.
Emily knew that name too.
Julian’s father’s younger brother.
The man newspapers called a businessman and prosecutors had spent thirty years failing to call anything else.
“What did Victor have to do with my father?” Emily asked.
Rosa hesitated.
Julian’s voice hardened.
“Mother.”
“He supervised the internal audit.”
Emily felt the room tilt.
The audit that destroyed Patrick Hart.
Julian looked again at the ticket.
“Why Bell & Rowan?”
Rosa shook her head.
“I don’t know.”
Emily took it.
Her thumb brushed the question mark beside her name.
Six years ago, Sofia Mercer had gone to the restaurant where Emily now worked.
Six years ago, she had been carrying Patrick Hart’s watch.
And somehow she had known Emily’s name.
Then Emily remembered something else.
“When did Sofia die?”
Julian gave her the exact date.
December twenty-seventh.
Emily’s skin went cold.
“I started at Bell & Rowan January fourth.”
Julian stared at her.
Eight days later.
Emily looked down at the ticket again.
Someone had written her name before she had ever worked there.
Julian said what both of them were thinking.
“My wife wasn’t just investigating Patrick Hart.”
May you like
His eyes lifted to Emily.
“She was trying to find you.”
