Chapter 3 - THE WATCH
Daniel stared at the hospital ticket as though Roman were holding a bullet.
Nobody spoke.
Anna pressed herself against Cassandra’s side.
I wished she weren’t in that room.
Roman must have thought the same thing.
He looked at Cassandra.
“Take Anna into the library.”
Lucia immediately shook her head.
“No. She stays with me.”
“Lucia.”
“I spent eleven years letting other people decide where I was safe.”
Roman absorbed that.
Then nodded.
“All right.”
He looked at me.
“Claire, would you stay with Anna in the breakfast room? Door open. She can still see her mother.”
Anna looked at me suspiciously.
I crouched slightly.
“There’s hot chocolate.”
She considered this.
“With marshmallows?”
Despite everything, Roman almost smiled.
“With an unreasonable number of them.”
Anna finally let Cassandra lead her twenty feet away to the breakfast room.
The doors remained open.
I stayed nearby but close enough to hear.
Roman placed the watch on the table.
“Daniel. Explain the ticket.”
Daniel straightened.
“I was at St. Matthew’s.”
“Why?”
“Security assessment.”
“For whom?”
Daniel hesitated.
Roman’s stare sharpened.
“For Cassandra.”
She shook her head.
“I never asked him.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You complained someone had been following you.”
“I told you I thought I was being watched. I didn’t tell you where I was going.”
Lucia stepped forward.
“So you followed her.”
Daniel’s expression tightened.
“I protect this family.”
Roman tapped one finger beside the ticket.
“My fiancée meets the sister I believe is dead and a niece I don’t know exists. You secretly follow them. I find the evidence hidden beneath a watch engraved with my uncle’s initials.”
He paused.
“Try again.”
Daniel exhaled.
“Vincent gave me the watch.”
“When?”
“Eleven years ago.”
Lucia stared at him.
Daniel continued.
“Your sister disappeared the same week my father died. Vincent said Dad wanted me to have it.”
Lucia’s face hardened.
“Your father wasn’t wearing that watch.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You said he was.”
“I said you were wearing your father’s watch.”
Daniel blinked.
Lucia pointed toward the gold watch.
“That isn’t it.”
Roman went still.
“What did Daniel’s father’s watch look like?”
“Silver. Black face. Cracked crystal.”
She looked at Daniel.
“You wore it that night.”
Daniel’s confusion looked genuine.
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“I was in Baltimore.”
“Then someone who looked very much like you wanted me to believe you weren’t.”
That changed everything.
For the first time, Daniel wasn’t merely accused.
He was confused.
Roman noticed.
So did Cassandra.
“Lucia,” Cassandra said carefully, “how clearly did you see his face?”
Lucia closed her eyes.
“There was smoke. Emergency lights.”
“And you were injured.”
“Yes.”
“Could you have seen the watch more clearly than the man?”
Lucia opened her eyes.
Her certainty had cracked.
“I heard his voice.”
Daniel looked at her.
“What did I say?”
She swallowed.
“‘Your brother should have listened.’”
Daniel shook his head.
“I have never said that sentence in my life.”
Roman looked at Lucia.
“Who else knew you and I had argued that week?”
Lucia laughed bitterly.
“Half the family.”
That was apparently true.
Lucia had wanted to leave Philadelphia.
Roman had refused to help her access money held in a family account because their father had just died and Roman suspected people were pressuring her.
She had interpreted it as control.
They had fought.
Forty-eight hours later, Lucia vanished.
Roman had spent years believing their last conversation had driven her away before her death.
Now I understood why his face carried more grief than anger.
Cassandra quietly said, “That argument is part of why Lucia stayed hidden.”
Roman turned toward her.
“What did she think I had done?”
Lucia answered.
“I didn’t think you hurt me.”
“Then what?”
“I thought you might not believe me.”
Roman recoiled as if she had slapped him.
Lucia’s eyes filled.
“I was twenty-seven. I was scared. I had just discovered Dad’s accounts didn’t match what he told us.”
Roman frowned.
“What accounts?”
She looked toward Anna.
“Family trust distributions.”
Cassandra stepped in.
“Lucia found payments being made under names that belonged to deceased relatives.”
Roman’s expression changed.
“Money was being stolen.”
“Not just money.”
Lucia pulled the photograph of Anna from Roman’s hand.
On the back, below Anna’s name, was a number none of us had noticed.
47-B.
Roman frowned.
“What is that?”
“A storage reference.”
Cassandra stared at Lucia.
“You told me you destroyed it.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because I didn’t know who I could trust.”
Roman gave a humorless laugh.
“That appears to be a family tradition.”
Lucia ignored it.
“My father kept duplicate records. Not financial ledgers exactly. Personal records. Promises. Property. Medical bills. People he was supporting privately.”
Evelyn suddenly looked up.
“Your father’s blue coat.”
Roman turned.
“What?”
“The winter before he died.”
Evelyn’s eyes had gone distant.
“He kept envelopes sewn into the lining.”
Roman stared at her.
“I remember that coat.”
“So do I.”
She looked toward the hallway.
“Cassandra asked me about it last month.”
Everyone turned toward Cassandra.
Roman’s voice cooled.
“Why?”
Cassandra didn’t deny it.
“Because Lucia told me the key to 47-B had been hidden in one of Anthony DeLuca’s personal belongings.”
Roman’s father.
Lucia nodded.
“I thought the coat had been destroyed.”
Evelyn’s lips parted.
“It wasn’t.”
Roman looked at her.
“Where is it?”
“In the cedar wardrobe in the old family room.”
Daniel immediately said, “I’ll check.”
Roman stopped him.
“No.”
Daniel’s jaw tightened.
“You still think I’m involved.”
“I think somebody has manipulated this family for eleven years.”
Roman picked up the gold watch.
“And you’ve been carrying my uncle’s property the entire time.”
Daniel looked hurt.
That surprised me.
“I’ve taken bullets for you.”
“And if you’re innocent, you’ll survive ten minutes of suspicion.”
Daniel fell silent.
Roman sent two other guards upstairs.
We waited.
Five minutes later, one returned.
His face told us before he spoke.
“The coat’s gone.”
Evelyn gripped the table.
“No. I checked that wardrobe Sunday.”
Roman turned toward Cassandra.
“You asked about it a month ago.”
“Yes.”
“Who heard you?”
Cassandra thought.
“Evelyn.”
“Anyone else?”
Her eyes moved slowly toward Daniel.
He went rigid.
“You were in the hall,” she said.
Daniel shook his head.
“I don’t remember.”
“I do.”
Roman stared at him.
Daniel’s face hardened.
“Then search my room.”
Roman did.
Not personally.
Two guards searched the small suite near the security office.
They found no blue coat.
But they found something else.
One guard returned carrying a child’s drawing.
Crayon on folded white paper.
A house.
Three women.
A little girl.
And a man with a square gold watch.
Across the bottom, in uneven letters, Anna had written:
THE MAN WHO WATCHES MOMMY.
Lucia snatched it from him.
“I’ve never seen this.”
Cassandra went pale.
“I have.”
Roman looked at her.
“When?”
“Anna drew it at St. Matthew’s.”
She looked toward the breakfast room.
“She told me a man had been standing beside the elevator.”
Daniel stared at the drawing.
Roman pointed toward the square gold shape on the man’s wrist.
“Your watch is round.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
Lucia whispered, “Vincent’s everyday watch is square.”
Silence.
Daniel looked toward Roman.
“Boss, Vincent left through the north gate seven minutes ago.”
Roman immediately picked up the house phone.
Then Cassandra said something strange.
“Don’t chase him.”
Roman turned.
“Why?”
“Because if Vincent knows Lucia is here, chasing him is exactly what he expects.”
Roman’s eyes narrowed.
Cassandra reached into her purse slowly, making sure everyone could see her hands.
She removed a small brass key.
“Lucia gave me this three years ago.”
Lucia stared at her.
“I gave you a copy.”
Cassandra shook her head.
“No.”
She placed it beside the bracelet.
“You gave me the original.”
Lucia’s face lost color.
Cassandra continued.
“And if this is the key to 47-B…”
She looked at Roman.
“…then somebody has been searching your house for a key that was never here.”
Roman stared at the key.
I felt the same realization hit everyone at once.
The blue coat hadn’t been stolen for the key.
Something else had been hidden inside it.
Evelyn suddenly whispered, “Roman.”
He looked at her.
The old woman’s face had gone white.
“Your father’s coat had two sewn pockets.”
“One for the key?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“For letters.”
Roman stared at her.
“What letters?”
Evelyn’s voice broke.
“The ones your mother wrote before she died.”
May you like
And Lucia immediately began to cry.
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