Chapter 3 - THE WATCH ON THE TABLE
Natalie grabbed the tablet.
“When was this taken?”
“Eight minutes ago.”
“My mother’s supposed to be closing.”
Roman was already issuing orders.
“Cars. Now.”
Natalie followed.
Evelyn moved too.
Roman turned.
“You stay here.”
“Roman—”
“You stay.”
“If Luca put that watch there, I may know why.”
Roman stopped.
Evelyn swallowed.
“He uses objects as messages.”
Natalie looked at the photograph again.
“What does the watch mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“That’s my nephew.”
“I know.”
Natalie’s voice sharpened.
“No. You know his name because someone researched me. I know him because I packed his lunch this morning.”
Evelyn flinched.
Good, Natalie thought.
She wanted her to.
Then Evelyn said, “The red napkin means witness.”
Natalie froze.
“What?”
“Luca’s people used red cloth markers when someone had seen something they shouldn’t.”
The napkin at Natalie’s service station suddenly meant something different.
Bianca hadn’t chosen red by accident.
She had copied a signal she’d seen in Martin’s files.
Natalie felt sick.
“And the watch?”
Evelyn looked at Roman.
“Family.”
Twenty minutes later, three black vehicles stopped outside Brooks Bakery.
The lights were on.
The front door was locked.
Roman’s security men entered first.
Natalie ignored instructions and followed.
Her mother, Linda, stood behind the counter holding a rolling pin.
Noah sat beneath a table.
“Aunt Nat!”
He scrambled out.
Natalie dropped to her knees and hugged him.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Did anybody touch you?”
“No.”
“Did anyone talk to you?”
Noah pointed toward the table.
“A man left that.”
The silver watch.
Roman approached slowly.
“What man?”
Noah looked at him.
“He looked like you.”
Nobody spoke.
Noah frowned.
“Not exactly.”
Roman crouched so they were closer to eye level.
“What was different?”
“He smiled more.”
Natalie almost laughed from pure nerves.
Roman didn’t.
“What did he say?”
Noah thought.
“He asked if my aunt worked at the big house.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“That Mom says don’t tell strangers stuff.”
Natalie kissed his hair.
“Good.”
Noah continued.
“Then he bought a cookie.”
Linda blinked.
“He paid with a hundred-dollar bill and told me to keep the change. I thought he was some arrogant rich guy.”
Roman picked up the watch.
His thumb moved across the scratched back.
Then stopped.
“What?”
Natalie asked.
Roman turned it over.
Two initials were engraved there.
A.C.
Beneath them, almost invisible:
L + R.
“Luca and Roman,” Bianca whispered.
Roman looked at his sister.
“Our mother had this engraved before we were born.”
Bianca’s eyes filled.
“You really had a twin.”
The discovery should have answered everything.
Instead, it created a worse question.
Why had their mother participated in hiding him?
Noah tugged Natalie’s sleeve.
“He left something else.”
Everyone turned.
The boy retrieved a folded sheet of paper from his math workbook.
It was a child’s drawing.
Two boys stood beside a woman in a yellow coat.
One boy was labeled R.
The other L.
Above them, in an adult hand, someone had written:
ASK BIANCA WHAT SHE REMEMBERS ABOUT THE LAKE.
Bianca went white.
“I was five.”
Roman stared at her.
“The lake house?”
She nodded slowly.
Their family had owned a house near Lake Geneva.
It had burned when Bianca was six.
Roman remembered almost nothing about it.
Bianca did.
“There were two boys.”
Roman stopped breathing.
“I thought one was your friend.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
“Because Dad said I dreamed it.”
Her voice broke.
“And eventually I believed him.”
Roman looked at the drawing.
The woman wore a yellow coat.
“My mother had one like that.”
Bianca nodded.
“She took us to the dock.”
“Us?”
“You. Me.”
She swallowed.
“And another boy.”
Roman turned away.
Natalie saw his hand close around the watch.
For forty-two years, his childhood had been a finished story.
Now every memory had a missing chair.
Linda quietly led Noah into the kitchen for hot chocolate.
Roman’s security chief searched the bakery.
No explosives.
No hidden attacker.
Nothing.
Luca had come only to leave a message.
Natalie hated that most.
“He wanted us to find this.”
Roman nodded.
“He’s controlling the investigation.”
“Then stop following his clues.”
Roman looked at her.
Natalie pointed at the watch.
“He wants you thinking about your childhood. About whether you’re Roman or Luca or whatever game your father played.”
“What would you suggest?”
“Ask what he’s doing while you’re looking backward.”
Roman’s expression shifted.
Then he turned to the technician.
“The FBI warrants.”
“What about them?”
“If Luca planned to replace me after the wedding, he needed me gone first.”
The technician nodded.
“Arrest would do it.”
“So check every authorization file again.”
They returned to Calder House before midnight.
The technician worked for nearly an hour.
At 12:41, he found the first anomaly.
Roman’s electronic signature appeared on forty-seven Harbor Light transactions.
All forged.
But the signatures had been generated from authentic samples.
Samples taken from documents inside Calder House.
Evelyn lowered her eyes.
“I gave Luca copies.”
Roman stared at her.
“How many?”
“I don’t know.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Hundreds.”
Bianca whispered, “My God.”
Evelyn’s voice shook.
“I thought he was auditing your business habits.”
Roman gave a bitter laugh.
“You thought the man blackmailing you needed hundreds of my signatures for an audit?”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“I knew it was wrong.”
That admission surprised everyone.
“I told myself I was protecting my mother and my brother. Then I told myself I was protecting Harbor Light’s legitimate programs. Then I told myself I’d stop after the wedding.”
She wiped her cheek.
“People can build very comfortable rooms out of excuses.”
Roman said nothing.
Natalie believed that part.
Not forgiveness.
But truth.
At 1:10 a.m., the technician found another hidden directory attached to the forged signatures.
A scanned photograph appeared.
Anthony Calder stood at the Lake Geneva house.
Beside him was Roman’s mother, Margaret, wearing the yellow coat.
Two seven-year-old boys stood between them.
Identical.
On the back, someone had handwritten a date.
And beneath it:
ROMAN STAYS WITH ANTHONY.
LUCA GOES WITH MARGARET.
Roman read it twice.
Then Bianca whispered the question nobody wanted to ask.
“If Luca went with Mom…”
May you like
She looked at her brother.
“…then which boy came back after she died?”
