Chapter 3 - THE WATCH THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST
Adrian drove ninety miles an hour without looking like he was speeding.
That was somehow worse.
His hands barely moved on the steering wheel.
His face stayed calm.
But every vehicle in front of us seemed to understand that getting in his way would be a mistake.
I called my mother six times.
Nothing.
On the seventh call, I heard her phone ring before we even got out of the car.
From inside the house.
The front door stood open.
One lamp burned in the living room.
My mother’s purse sat on the kitchen counter.
Her coat was still hanging by the door.
“Mom?”
I ran inside.
Adrian caught my shoulder.
“Behind me.”
“That’s my mother.”
“And somebody may still be in here.”
I hated that he was right.
His security team entered from the back.
No broken windows.
No overturned furniture.
Whoever had been here had not searched randomly.
They had known exactly where to go.
My mother’s bedroom closet was open.
The wooden box she kept on the top shelf was gone.
I stared at the empty space.
Adrian noticed.
“What was there?”
“Jewelry.”
“Expensive?”
I almost laughed.
“My mother thinks twenty-dollar earrings are extravagant.”
“Then what mattered?”
I tried to remember.
“She kept old things in there. My grandmother’s rosary. My birth bracelet. Pictures.”
“And the ledger?”
“I’ve never seen any ledger.”
Adrian crouched beside the closet.
One tiny object had fallen beneath a shoe rack.
He reached under and pulled it out.
A gold chain.
Broken.
Attached to it was a tiny medallion of Saint Christopher.
My mother had worn it every day until I was twelve.
“She told me it belonged to my grandfather.”
Adrian studied the back.
Something had been scratched into the metal.
A.R.
Anthony Romano.
Neither of us spoke.
I heard a car door outside.
I ran toward the front window.
A gray sedan stopped at the curb.
My mother climbed out.
Alive.
I was through the door before she reached the sidewalk.
“Rachel?”
I grabbed her so hard she dropped her grocery bag.
Oranges rolled under the bushes.
“What happened?”
I couldn’t answer.
I just held her.
Then she saw the house.
The open door.
Adrian behind me.
And the medal in his hand.
My mother stopped breathing.
It was the first time in my life I watched my mother become frightened of an object.
“Where did you get that?”
I let go of her.
“Your bedroom.”
She looked toward the house.
Then at Adrian.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“Apparently nobody should.”
My mother’s eyes moved to me.
“What happened at the estate?”
“You tell me.”
“Rachel—”
“No.”
Years of small trust broke in one syllable.
“Anthony Romano was my father?”
Her face collapsed.
That was the answer.
I stepped backward.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“My entire life?”
“Yes.”
“Every birthday?”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
“Every time I asked why there weren’t pictures?”
“Yes.”
I laughed once because otherwise I might have screamed.
Adrian turned away slightly.
Giving us privacy in my own front yard.
I appreciated it.
I also hated that the most dangerous man I had ever met was showing me more honesty than my mother had.
“Why?”
She looked at him.
“Because his father threatened us.”
Adrian looked back.
“Tell me exactly what Joseph said.”
My mother went still.
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Adrian said. “But somebody locked my mother in a room, somebody took Margaret, and Celeste Ward just broke into your house looking for something connected to my uncle. So we’re past protecting old reputations.”
My mother stared at him.
Then quietly said:
“Your father didn’t have a reputation worth protecting.”
That landed hard.
We went inside.
My mother sat at the kitchen table.
The same table where I had done homework.
Where she had helped me fill out college financial-aid forms.
Where she had told me my father had died before I could know him.
Technically, maybe that part had been true.
Everything else?
I didn’t know.
“Anthony and I met in 1995,” she said.
“He used to come into the bakery where I worked.”
“You were together?”
“For almost two years.”
“Did he know about me?”
Her face softened.
“He painted your room.”
My throat tightened.
“What?”
“Yellow.”
I had always hated yellow.
For some reason, that nearly destroyed me.
“He built your crib himself. Badly.”
A tiny smile appeared through her tears.
“He was terrible with instructions.”
I looked down.
This stranger I had never been allowed to know suddenly had hands.
Habits.
A sense of humor.
A room he had prepared for me.
“What happened?”
My mother looked at Adrian.
“Anthony discovered that Joseph was using Pier Nine to move money through construction contracts. He wanted out.”
Adrian said nothing.
“Anthony controlled forty percent of the waterfront company. Joseph needed his signature to restructure it.”
“So?”
“Anthony refused.”
I understood.
“Then I was born.”
“Yes.”
My mother twisted her fingers together.
“Anthony put his ownership into a protective trust for you.”
The burned page.
PIER NINE DEVELOPMENT TRUST.
“Why hide it?”
“Because Joseph couldn’t seize it if the beneficiary couldn’t be found.”
Adrian leaned against the counter.
“Father spent thirty years hiding Rachel because she owned Anthony’s stake?”
My mother shook her head.
“No.”
Reversal.
“He spent thirty years making sure nobody could prove she owned it.”
That was different.
Much worse.
“What happened to Anthony?” I asked.
Silence.
My mother’s eyes went to the broken medal.
“He left our apartment one night.”
“Why?”
“He said he was meeting Joseph.”
“And?”
“He never came home.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“My father said Anthony went to Montreal.”
“He lied.”
“You know that?”
“I know Anthony left his passport in my drawer.”
The kitchen went silent.
My mother stood.
She walked to an old recipe cabinet and pulled out a flour-stained envelope.
Inside was a ferry ticket.
Boston Harbor.
April 19, 1997.
Two days after the date I had seen repeated in the archive notes.
4–17–9.
Maybe it had never meant locker 417 alone.
Maybe it meant April 17, Pier Nine.
My mother handed Adrian the ticket.
“Anthony bought two.”
“For where?”
“Cape Cod.”
“He was planning to run?”
“With us.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“He disappeared first.”
I stared at the date.
“You kept this for thirty years?”
“I kept everything.”
“Except the truth.”
Her eyes closed.
“I kept you alive.”
I wanted to be furious.
I was furious.
But I also saw the woman who had spent three decades looking over her shoulder without ever explaining why.
Adrian asked:
“What did Celeste come here for?”
My mother looked toward the missing jewelry box.
“The pocket watch.”
“What pocket watch?”
“Anthony’s.”
“What was special about it?”
“He wore it the night he disappeared.”
My skin prickled.
“How do you have it?”
My mother looked at me.
“Because three days after Anthony vanished, Eleanor brought it to me.”
Adrian’s head snapped up.
“My mother?”
“She told me Anthony would not be coming back.”
There it was.
A new secret.
Larger than the last.
“Did she tell you he was dead?” Adrian asked.
“No.”
“Did she tell you how she got the watch?”
“No.”
“Then why did you trust her?”
My mother swallowed.
“Because she was covered in blood.”
Nobody moved.
Not even Adrian.
His voice lowered.
“Whose blood?”
“She wouldn’t say.”
Outside, a security officer called Adrian.
He stepped onto the porch.
I heard only pieces.
Vehicle.
Traffic camera.
Route east.
Adrian returned.
“They found footage of Celeste.”
“Where?”
“She didn’t leave Worcester after coming here.”
My mother stood.
“What does that mean?”
“She went to Saint Agnes.”
My mother’s face lost all color.
“Mom?”
She gripped the table.
Saint Agnes was a closed maternity hospital on the edge of the city.
I knew that because I had been born there.
Adrian saw my face.
“You were born at Saint Agnes?”
I nodded.
My mother whispered:
“There’s something there she cannot find.”
“What?”
She looked at me.
Then toward the empty place where her jewelry box had been.
“The bracelet they put around your wrist the night you were born.”
“I thought that was in the box.”
“That was a copy.”
Another lie.
“What’s the original?”
My mother’s voice trembled.
“One Eleanor made the nurse hide.”
“Why?”
“Because it doesn’t say Rachel Cooper.”
I stared at her.
“What does it say?”
She answered quietly.
May you like
“Rachel Romano.”
And Adrian was already reaching for his keys.
