Chapter 2 - THE CALL THAT WASN’T FOR CLAIRE
The ringing came from inside a cardboard box.
Nobody moved.
It rang again.
Old-fashioned.
Shrill.
Impossible.
Daniel reached the box first and pulled aside yellowed newspaper clippings.
Underneath them sat a gray flip phone plugged into a portable battery pack.
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“That phone is twenty years old.”
Daniel checked the screen.
“No service provider listed.”
Claire folded her arms around herself.
“Then why is it ringing?”
Eleanor looked worse than anyone.
She took one step backward.
Vincent noticed.
“Mom.”
“I don’t know.”
“You do.”
The phone stopped.
Then a text appeared.
One sentence.
DID CLAIRE REMEMBER THE WATCH?
Claire stared at it.
“What watch?”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Vincent turned toward her.
“You have ten seconds before I stop asking nicely.”
His mother opened them again.
“Your father wore a gold watch that night.”
Claire’s stomach tightened.
She remembered firelight.
Smoke.
A man bending near the bathroom door.
A flash of gold beneath his sleeve.
Then something else.
“No.”
Vincent stepped toward her.
“What?”
Claire touched her temple.
“He wasn’t wearing it.”
Eleanor frowned.
Claire’s memory came in pieces.
“The man in the apartment had a pale line around his wrist. Like he usually wore a watch, but he’d taken it off.”
Vincent’s eyes moved to the old phone.
“So someone wants us to believe the watch identifies my father.”
Eleanor whispered, “It did belong to Enzo.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
Claire looked at her.
“Where is it?”
Eleanor said nothing.
Vincent’s patience disappeared.
“Where is my father’s watch?”
“At the house.”
They returned to the estate shortly before three in the morning.
Vanessa was gone.
Her car was still missing.
But her luggage remained upstairs.
Vincent sent Daniel to locate her without contacting police yet.
Claire noticed.
“You still think she’s involved.”
“I know she’s involved.”
“You don’t know how.”
“That distinction matters.”
Claire couldn’t argue with that.
Eleanor led them into Enzo Moretti’s old study.
Claire had cleaned the room twice during private events, but she had never opened the cabinets.
Eleanor crossed to a framed photograph behind the desk.
Enzo stood beside a younger Vincent and twelve-year-old Lucia at Lake Geneva.
Lucia wore a red winter coat.
One button was missing.
Claire’s chest tightened.
Eleanor removed the photograph.
Behind it was a small wall safe.
Vincent watched her enter the combination.
“You told me Dad’s personal effects went into storage after he died.”
“I lied.”
“You’re getting very comfortable saying that tonight.”
Eleanor flinched.
Inside the safe sat three objects.
A rosary.
A sealed envelope.
And an empty velvet watch box.
Eleanor froze.
“No.”
Vincent opened it anyway.
Nothing.
“When did you last see the watch?”
“Two months ago.”
Claire looked at her sharply.
“Why were you checking it two months ago?”
Eleanor lowered herself into Enzo’s desk chair.
“Because Vanessa asked me about the fire.”
Vincent’s gaze sharpened.
“You said you never told her about Lucia.”
“I didn’t. She already knew.”
That changed the room.
Eleanor rubbed the rosary between her fingers.
“Vanessa came to me after your engagement announcement. She said someone had contacted her father about an old Moretti problem. She knew West Addison. She knew Claire’s first name. She knew there had been a ledger.”
Claire felt cold.
“And you didn’t tell Vincent?”
“I thought the past was coming back because of me.”
“What does that mean?”
Eleanor looked at Claire.
“After the fire, I found you at the hospital.”
Claire’s breathing slowed.
“You were there?”
“For three days.”
“I don’t remember you.”
“You were sedated most of the time.”
Eleanor’s voice broke.
“Lucia wouldn’t stop asking for you. She kept saying, ‘Claire came back for me.’”
Claire looked away.
The child’s voice returned from twenty years earlier.
Are you a firefighter?
No.
Then why are you here?
Apparently I make terrible decisions.
Eleanor continued.
“Enzo ordered me to stay away from you.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“Why?”
“He said you’d accidentally seen something involving his business.”
“The red ledger?”
Eleanor shook her head.
“I didn’t know what it was then.”
Claire’s anger rose.
“You knew someone was threatening me.”
“Yes.”
“And you left me alone?”
“I thought leaving you alone was the only reason you stayed alive.”
Claire stared at her.
That answer hurt more because it sounded believable.
Eleanor placed the rosary on the desk.
“I paid your hospital bill anonymously. I arranged for you to be transferred to a rehabilitation center under your mother’s maiden name. I convinced Enzo you had severe memory loss.”
Vincent went still.
“You protected Claire by making Dad think she couldn’t identify him.”
“Yes.”
Claire looked toward the empty watch box.
“Then why keep his watch?”
“Because Lucia gave it to me six years later.”
Silence.
Vincent’s face changed.
“My sister had Dad’s watch?”
Eleanor nodded.
“On the day she disappeared.”
Claire frowned.
“You said she died.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled.
“I said Vincent believed she died.”
Vincent stepped back as if she had struck him.
“What did you just say?”
Eleanor looked at her son.
“Lucia disappeared when she was thirteen.”
“No.”
“You were already in New York handling the family’s shipping business. Your father told you there had been an accident at a private school in Wisconsin.”
“I saw an urn.”
“It wasn’t hers.”
Vincent’s voice went dangerously quiet.
“You let me bury an empty urn.”
“I was trying to keep you from coming home and getting killed.”
“You don’t get to call that protection.”
“I know.”
It was the first answer that stopped him.
Claire saw the pain beneath his anger.
Vincent had spent fourteen years grieving a sister who might never have died.
“Why did Lucia give you the watch?” Claire asked.
Eleanor wiped her face.
“She came home from school terrified. She said she had finally remembered the man in the apartment.”
Vincent stared at her.
“Was it Dad?”
“No.”
Claire’s pulse jumped.
Eleanor continued.
“She said the man wore Enzo’s watch after the fire. She believed he took it to make witnesses identify your father.”
A reversal so simple it made everything worse.
The watch had not proved Enzo was there.
It had been used to frame him.
Vincent leaned against the desk.
“Who had it?”
“Lucia wouldn’t tell me. She only said, ‘He comes to dinner.’”
Claire’s skin prickled.
Someone close to the family.
Someone welcome inside the house.
Eleanor opened the envelope from the safe.
Inside was a child’s drawing.
Three stick figures stood beside a burning building.
One was labeled MOM.
One CLAIRE.
The third had no name.
But Lucia had drawn a gold watch on his wrist.
Beside him, in shaky handwriting, were four words.
HE HAS BLUE CUFFLINKS.
Vincent stared.
Claire noticed recognition.
“Who wore blue cufflinks?”
Before he could answer, Daniel entered.
He looked grim.
“We found Vanessa.”
Vincent straightened.
“Where?”
“She never reached her father’s house.”
Daniel placed a small evidence bag on the desk.
Inside lay a broken necklace.
Claire recognized it from the engagement dinner.
Vanessa’s.
Daniel continued.
“We found this beside her car near Sheridan Road.”
“Was there blood?”
“No.”
“A struggle?”
Daniel hesitated.
“No. That’s the problem.”
He unlocked his phone and showed them a traffic-camera image.
Vanessa had parked voluntarily.
She had climbed into another car.
The driver’s face was hidden.
But his hand rested on the steering wheel.
And fastened at his cuff was a dark blue stone.
Eleanor stopped breathing.
Vincent whispered one name.
“Richard Caldwell.”
Vanessa’s father.
Then Claire looked again at Lucia’s twenty-year-old drawing and understood.
May you like
The man Lucia remembered had not been a stranger.
He had been the father of the woman Vincent was supposed to marry.
