Chapter 6 - THE WOMAN WITH THE BROKEN WATCH
"Vivian was helping Raymond?"
I stared at the photograph.
The woman I'd begun to believe had finally developed a conscience had been standing outside my children's school.
Lucas enlarged the image.
The cracked gold watch was unmistakable.
But something about her posture bothered me.
She wasn't looking at the school.
She was looking at Raymond.
And her face seemed tense.
"Don't assume the worst yet," Lucas said.
"She followed me when I was pregnant. She offered me money to disappear. Now she's outside my children's school. What else am I supposed to assume?"
Lucas didn't answer.
I looked toward the adjoining beds.
Noah slept curled beneath his blanket.
Sophie had one arm wrapped around a stuffed rabbit she'd owned since kindergarten.
For ten years, I'd protected them from the Sullivan world.
Now that world had followed us all the way to their school.
I felt sick.
"Call Ethan," I said.
Lucas studied me.
"Are you sure?"
"He's their father. He deserves to know someone has been watching them."
It was the first time I'd said those words without bitterness.
Their father.
The truth was becoming impossible to avoid.
Ethan arrived twenty minutes later, wearing a black coat over his evening clothes.
His eyes went immediately toward the sleeping children.
He stopped at the bedroom doorway.
For a long moment, he didn't speak.
"They look peaceful," he whispered.
"They are. I'd like to keep them that way."
He nodded.
Then Lucas showed him the photograph.
Ethan studied it.
His expression changed when he recognized Raymond.
"That man has sat at my dinner table every Christmas for twenty years."
"Then you should know what he's capable of," I replied.
Ethan glanced at Vivian's reflection.
"Something doesn't fit."
I folded my arms.
"What?"
"Vivian contacted me last month."
I stared at him.
"What?"
"She sent a note asking to speak privately. She said it concerned Mother and Raymond."
"Did you meet her?"
"No. Marcus tried to arrange it. She canceled."
"Why didn't you mention that earlier?"
"Because I didn't realize she was the same woman until tonight."
He looked back at the photograph.
"Raymond may have been threatening her."
I wanted to dismiss that possibility.
But I remembered Vivian's expression when she'd handed Ethan the photograph of the twins.
She had looked relieved.
Not triumphant.
Lucas suggested we ask her directly.
Ethan made the arrangements through Marcus.
By morning, Vivian was waiting in a conference room at the hotel.
Her hands shook as she poured coffee.
I placed the school photograph on the table.
"Explain."
Vivian stared at it.
Then she covered her mouth.
"I didn't know he had someone taking pictures."
"You were standing beside him."
"I know."
"Why?"
She looked at Ethan.
"Because Raymond told me he'd found the children. He wanted me to confirm their identities."
My anger rose.
"And you did?"
"No."
I pointed at the picture.
"Then why were you there?"
"Because I was trying to make sure he wouldn't approach them."
I studied her.
"That's a convenient answer."
Vivian removed her watch.
The cracked face caught the light.
"Raymond gave me this ten years ago. Not as a gift. As a reminder."
She turned it over.
The back was engraved with a date.
MARCH 14.
The night I left Ethan.
"My husband was still alive then," Vivian said. "He owed Raymond money from a failed construction business."
Ethan frowned.
"How much?"
"Enough that Raymond could ruin him."
She swallowed.
"Raymond told me that if I helped locate Claire, he'd clear the debt. I agreed. Then I discovered the pregnancy."
I felt my stomach tighten.
"You traded information about me for your husband's debt."
"Yes."
Vivian didn't try to soften the words.
"My husband died four years later. By then, Raymond had enough information to prove what I'd done. He threatened to tell Claire and Ethan if I ever spoke."
I stared at her.
"That's why you stayed silent?"
"That's part of it."
"What's the rest?"
Vivian reached into her coat pocket.
She withdrew an old train ticket.
Milwaukee to Chicago.
Dated November twenty-first, ten years earlier.
"After you refused the twenty thousand dollars, I went back to Chicago. I told Margaret the babies were healthy."
Her voice cracked.
"She asked whether they'd need anything."
I laughed bitterly.
"That's touching."
"She had me arrange an anonymous payment to the hospital for your delivery bills."
I blinked.
I remembered the billing clerk telling me an assistance fund had covered the remaining charges.
I had cried with relief.
I'd thought it was charity.
"Margaret paid those bills?"
Vivian nodded.
I felt a complicated wave of anger and sorrow.
Margaret had cared enough to help.
But not enough to tell Ethan.
Vivian continued.
"Then Raymond discovered the payment. He accused Margaret of becoming sentimental. He told her he'd destroy Ethan if she ever contacted the children again."
Ethan leaned forward.
"How?"
Vivian looked toward him.
"With evidence relating to your father's death."
Ethan went very still.
"What evidence?"
"I never saw it. But Margaret believed him."
I watched Ethan's face.
For the first time, fear replaced anger.
Not fear for himself.
Fear of something he had believed buried.
"My father's death was investigated," he said.
Vivian nodded.
"Yes. But Raymond claimed he knew who had ordered the attack."
Ethan's voice lowered.
"Who?"
Vivian hesitated.
"Your mother."
Nobody moved.
Ethan looked as though the floor had vanished beneath him.
"That's impossible."
"I don't know whether it's true," Vivian replied. "I only know Raymond used the accusation to control her."
I remembered Margaret's fear at the gala.
Her desperate insistence that the twins couldn't be Ethan's.
Had she been protecting herself?
Or trying to keep Raymond from recognizing the children?
I couldn't decide.
Ethan stood.
"I need to speak to Mother."
"Not alone," I said.
He looked at me.
"Why?"
"Because every time someone in this family has a private conversation, another ten years disappear."
He stared at me for a moment.
Then he nodded.
"Fair."
By afternoon, we were gathered in Margaret's study at the Sullivan mansion.
I hadn't entered that room since the night my marriage ended.
The same dark walnut bookshelves lined the walls.
The same silver clock stood above the fireplace.
Even the smell of polished wood brought back memories I didn't want.
Margaret sat beneath her father's portrait.
When she saw Vivian's broken watch on the table, her face changed.
"Where did you find that?"
"Vivian kept it," Ethan said.
Margaret looked at Vivian.
"You should have destroyed it."
"Why?" I demanded.
Margaret closed her eyes.
"Because Raymond had another one."
Vivian frowned.
"What?"
"A matching watch," Margaret whispered. "He gave it to the person who carried out his instructions on the night Claire left."
Ethan gripped the back of a chair.
"Who?"
Margaret looked at me.
Then she reached into a drawer and removed a small black velvet box.
Inside was another gold watch.
Its face was unbroken.
On the back was the same date.
March fourteenth.
Margaret's hands trembled.
"Raymond sent this to me after your divorce."
"Why?" Ethan asked.
Her voice broke.
"To prove he could reach anyone in this house."
I stared at the watch.
Then at the silver clock above the fireplace.
Something suddenly came back to me.
Ten years ago, while Ethan screamed at me in the hallway, I'd heard Margaret arguing with someone inside this study.
A man's voice.
Low.
Controlled.
And the sharp sound of a cane striking the floor.
Raymond.
I looked at Margaret.
"That night, he was here."
She nodded.
"He was."
Ethan looked toward his mother.
"What did he make you do?"
Margaret began to cry.
"Something I have regretted every day."
She opened the velvet box's false bottom.
Beneath the watch lay a folded photograph.
I recognized the image immediately.
It showed Ethan and me on our wedding day.
But someone had written across the back.
IF THE GIRL STAYS, THE BOY DIES.
Ethan read the words.
His face went gray.
May you like
Margaret looked at him.
"Raymond wasn't threatening to kill Claire, Ethan. He was threatening to kill you."
