Chapter 3 - THE WARNING INSIDE THE BROKEN WATCH
“Caleb, why was my dead brother afraid of you?”
Dominic held the yellowed note between two trembling fingers.
Caleb Mercer didn't answer immediately.
His eyes moved from the paper to the cracked wristwatch.
Then to me.
“Because Anthony was sick,” he said.
Dominic's face hardened.
“Choose your next words carefully.”
“Your brother was paranoid during his final months. You know that.”
“I know what you told me.”
Mercer swallowed.
“Anthony accused everyone of betraying him. Your accountants. Your drivers. Even me.”
“And now I have a warning in his handwriting.”
“Writing something doesn't make it true.”
Dominic looked down at the note.
For a moment, the ruthless man everyone feared disappeared.
In his place stood an exhausted older brother holding the last words of someone he loved.
I recognized that expression.
I'd worn it myself when my father died.
The difference was that my father had left me a toolbox.
Anthony Moretti had left his brother a warning.
Dr. Bennett stepped forward.
“Dominic, we need to get you to the hospital.”
“Not until Caleb explains this.”
Mercer exhaled.
“Fine. Anthony believed I was stealing from your family.”
Dominic's jaw tightened.
“Were you?”
“No.”
“Then why hide his note?”
“Because finding it would have destroyed you.”
Dominic gave a bitter laugh.
“You don't get to decide what destroys me.”
I looked again at the folded paper.
Something bothered me.
Not the warning.
The folds.
“May I ask something?”
Mercer turned sharply.
“You've interfered enough.”
Dominic ignored him.
“Ask.”
“Your brother's message wasn't just folded to fit inside the watch.”
I held out my hand.
Dominic passed me the note.
I carefully opened the remaining creases.
A narrow strip along the edge contained faint pencil marks.
Four numbers.
4 - 11 - 7 - 2.
“What are those?” Dominic asked.
“I don't know.”
Mercer reached for the paper.
I moved it away.
“Don't touch it.”
His face darkened.
“You seem awfully comfortable giving orders in someone else's house.”
“I'm comfortable keeping evidence out of hands that look nervous.”
One of the guards almost smiled.
Mercer noticed.
“Everyone out.”
Nobody moved.
Dominic took the note from me.
“Caleb, you're relieved of duty until I understand what's happening.”
Mercer stared at him.
“After eighteen years?”
“After eighteen years, I expected you to answer a simple question.”
“You have no idea what I've sacrificed for this family.”
“Then you can explain it when I'm well enough to listen.”
Mercer's expression changed.
For a second, I saw something beyond anger.
Grief.
“Anthony wasn't the only person who died that night,” he whispered.
Dominic went still.
“What does that mean?”
Mercer looked toward the window.
Then he said, “Ask your doctor.”
Before Dominic could respond, Mercer placed his pistol on the dresser and walked out.
Two guards followed him.
The taller guard remained.
Dominic turned toward Dr. Bennett.
“Samuel?”
The doctor looked uncomfortable.
“Your brother died in a warehouse fire.”
“I know that.”
“Your family physician at the time, Dr. Arthur Vale, was also found dead in the building.”
Dominic frowned.
“Nobody ever told me.”
“Caleb said you knew.”
Another lie.
Or another missing piece.
Dominic lowered himself back into the chair.
“Who else died?”
Dr. Bennett hesitated.
“A technician. His name was Walter Hodge.”
My entire body went cold.
For several seconds, I couldn't breathe.
“What did you say?”
The doctor looked at me.
“Walter Hodge. He was working at the warehouse when the fire started.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Dominic studied my face.
“Penny?”
“My father was Walter Hodge.”
Nobody spoke.
I could hear the ambulance engine running below.
My father had died four years earlier in what investigators called an industrial electrical accident.
The company claimed a transformer malfunction had started the fire.
They'd offered my mother a settlement.
She refused it.
She spent the next two years fighting for the full inspection report before a stroke took her.
And now I was standing in the bedroom of a mafia boss whose brother died in the same fire.
“Where was this warehouse?” I asked.
Dominic answered.
“Near the Calumet River. South Chicago.”
My knees nearly gave way.
I remembered the address.
The yellow police tape.
The reporters.
The smell of smoke in my father's coat when an investigator returned his belongings.
“Why didn't anyone tell me Anthony Moretti was involved?”
Dominic looked as stunned as I felt.
“Why didn't anyone tell me Walter Hodge had a daughter?”
I stepped backward.
“Because somebody wanted those deaths treated as an accident.”
Dr. Bennett raised his hands.
“We shouldn't jump to conclusions.”
I turned toward him.
“You just told us three men died together and two families never knew the others existed. What conclusion would you prefer?”
He had no answer.
Dominic slowly stood.
“Penny, I need you to understand something.”
“What?”
“My brother was investigating missing money before he died. I thought he was acting against me.”
“Why?”
“Caleb showed me bank records.”
“Were they real?”
“I don't know anymore.”
For the first time, his voice carried something close to shame.
“I confronted Anthony. We argued. He walked out, and I never saw him alive again.”
I looked at the watch in his hand.
“Maybe he wasn't stealing from you.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“Maybe.”
Outside, a siren sounded.
Dr. Bennett finally convinced Dominic to leave.
Before the paramedics helped him downstairs, he handed me Anthony's watch.
“Keep this until we know who we can trust.”
I stared at it.
“That's your brother's.”
“And your father's name is now part of this.”
I wanted to refuse.
I wanted to drive home, lock my apartment door, and never think about the Moretti family again.
Instead, I slipped the watch into my tool bag.
Because my mother had died without getting answers.
And I had spent four years pretending that didn't haunt me.
As Dominic was wheeled toward the ambulance, the elderly housekeeper approached.
Her name was Rosa Delgado.
She'd been working for the Moretti family since Dominic was a teenager.
“Miss Hodge,” she whispered, “your father's name sounds familiar.”
I stopped.
“You knew him?”
Rosa glanced toward the security cameras.
“Not personally. But I remember someone coming here after the fire.”
“Who?”
“A woman. She carried a photograph and demanded to see Dominic.”
My heart began pounding.
“What woman?”
“I never learned her name. Caleb sent her away.”
Rosa hesitated.
“She said something strange.”
“What?”
“She told Caleb that Walter Hodge hadn't gone to that warehouse to repair anything.”
I stared at her.
“Then why was he there?”
Rosa's eyes filled with tears.
“She said he'd gone to save a child.”
The hallway seemed to tilt.
“My father never mentioned a child.”
Rosa reached into her apron.
“I kept something that woman dropped.”
She pressed a small photograph into my hand.
It showed my father standing beside Anthony Moretti.
Between them was a little girl wearing a yellow raincoat.
She looked about eight years old.
The photograph had been taken outside the warehouse.
I turned it over.
My father's handwriting covered the back.
PENNY MUST NEVER KNOW ABOUT THIS PLACE.
My stomach dropped.
Then I looked closer at the child's face.
And realized she was wearing my old red friendship bracelet.
The one I'd made when I was twenty-six.
The one I'd given to a little girl who disappeared from our neighborhood four years ago.
Her name was Lily Mercer.
Caleb Mercer's granddaughter.
And according to the newspapers, she'd been dead since the warehouse fire.
I looked at Rosa.
“Where is Lily Mercer buried?”
Rosa gripped my wrist.
May you like
Her voice broke.
“Penny, that little girl was standing in this house three days ago.”
