Chapter 1 - The Watch on a Dead Man's Wrist
“Because twenty-three years ago, she paid your father to burn our house down. And Grace... you were supposed to be inside.”
My mother's voice broke on the final word.
I stood behind the counter of the restaurant, staring at Eleanor Whitmore.
Twenty minutes earlier, the eighty-one-year-old woman had grabbed my wrist, told me my mother had been buried alive, and slapped me hard enough to knock me against a table.
Now Rebecca Miller, the woman I'd buried when I was seven, was speaking to me on the phone.
And she had my six-year-old daughter.
“Put Lily back on,” I said.
“Grace, please listen.”
“Put. Her. On.”
There was a rustling sound.
Then my daughter spoke.
“Mommy?”
I nearly collapsed.
“Baby, are you okay?”
“Yeah. Grandma Becky bought me strawberry milk.”
Grandma Becky.
My daughter had already given my dead mother a nickname.
“Where are you, sweetheart?”
“In a car.”
“Can you see any buildings?”
“There's a big blue sign. And a man with a dog.”
I reached for a pen.
Before I could write anything, Rebecca took the phone.
“Grace, somebody was coming for Lily. I got there first.”
“Who?”
“People Nathan sent.”
I looked across the restaurant.
Nathan Whitmore stood near the entrance, talking urgently to one of the men in black coats.
He had one hand pressed against his phone.
His expensive gray suit was perfectly tailored, but his face had lost its earlier confidence.
“Why would Nathan want my daughter?”
“Because he knows what Thomas left you.”
My stomach tightened.
“Dad left me a house with a leaking roof and fourteen thousand dollars in medical bills.”
“Not that.”
“What, then?”
Rebecca inhaled sharply.
“Your father kept something from the night of the fire. Nathan has spent twenty-three years looking for it.”
I touched the brass key in my apron pocket.
“Is it in locker 317?”
Rebecca went silent.
“Mom?”
“Who told you about that locker?”
“Eleanor.”
“Don't open it alone.”
“Why?”
“Because the last person who tried is dead.”
The line clicked.
“Mom?”
No answer.
I called back.
The number was unavailable.
I stood staring at my phone, fighting the urge to throw it against the wall.
My mother had been dead for twenty-three years.
Now she was alive, holding my daughter somewhere I couldn't find her, and treating me like a child who couldn't be trusted with the truth.
“Grace?”
Luis Ortega, my manager, appeared beside me.
His dark eyebrows were drawn together.
“You look terrible.”
“My daughter was taken from school.”
His expression changed instantly.
“What?”
“Call the police.”
He grabbed the restaurant phone.
Across the dining room, Nathan turned toward me.
Our eyes met.
He began walking.
I slipped my phone into my apron and stepped away from the counter.
“Where's the key, Grace?”
I said nothing.
Nathan stopped three feet away.
“Whatever my mother gave you belongs to the Whitmore family.”
“Then I guess your family should've been more careful with it.”
His mouth tightened.
“You're playing a dangerous game.”
“My six-year-old daughter is missing. I'm not playing anything.”
He glanced toward the entrance.
Two police cruisers pulled up outside.
Nathan's expression softened into something almost sympathetic.
“I'm trying to prevent another tragedy.”
“Like the fire?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw.
“You have no idea what happened that night.”
“Then tell me.”
He leaned closer.
“Your mother wasn't the innocent woman you remember.”
Before I could answer, a police officer entered.
Nathan stepped away.
And just like that, the concerned son returned.
“My elderly mother is experiencing a psychiatric episode,” he explained.
The officer looked toward Eleanor.
She was sitting quietly by the window, hands folded in her lap.
A perfect picture of confusion and fragility.
I almost admired her performance.
Almost.
Then her eyes found mine.
She touched her left wrist.
Once.
Twice.
I frowned.
She did it again.
Then she looked away.
A watch.
She was telling me something about a watch.
But whose?
My phone buzzed.
A message from Sarah, my best friend.
Grace. Call me. NOW.
I called immediately.
“Sarah?”
“Where are you?”
“At work.”
“Don't go home.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“There's a man standing on your porch.”
“So?”
“Grace, I know this sounds crazy.”
“What man?”
Her voice shook.
“He looks exactly like your dad.”
I stopped breathing.
Thomas Miller had been dead for eleven years.
I'd seen paramedics carry him out of our house after a heart attack.
I'd chosen his coffin.
I'd stood beside his grave.
Sarah continued.
“He's got the same scar over his left eyebrow.”
I gripped the counter.
“Take a picture.”
“I already did.”
My phone buzzed.
I opened the photograph.
A man stood on my front porch wearing a brown work jacket.
His hair was almost completely gray.
He looked directly toward Sarah's car.
There was no mistaking his face.
My father.
I zoomed in.
His left hand rested on the porch railing.
Around his wrist was a silver watch with a brown leather strap.
My breath caught.
I knew that watch.
I'd bought it for Thomas's fiftieth birthday with money from my first summer job.
The glass had a tiny crack near the number eight.
He wore it every day.
Even when the strap broke, he'd repaired it himself.
And eleven years ago, before his funeral, I'd placed that watch inside his coffin.
I remembered fastening it around his wrist.
I remembered whispering, You won't need to check the time anymore, Dad.
The photograph blurred.
I looked up.
Eleanor was watching me.
Her eyes moved to my phone.
Then she touched her wrist again.
I finally understood.
She hadn't been telling me to look at Nathan.
She'd been telling me to look for Thomas's watch.
The phone rang.
Sarah again.
I answered.
“Sarah, get away from the house.”
“Grace, the man just came over to my car.”
“Lock the doors.”
“He said something.”
“What?”
“He said you need to stop looking for Rebecca.”
My chest tightened.
“Did he threaten you?”
“No. But he knew Lily's name.”
I closed my eyes.
Then Sarah said, “Grace, there's somebody else inside your house.”
“What?”
“I can see a woman through the front window.”
“Who?”
“I don't know. She's wearing a red coat.”
The line went quiet.
“Sarah?”
I heard a car door slam.
Then Sarah gasped.
“Grace, he's coming back.”
The call ended.
I stared at the screen.
For one second, every sound inside the restaurant vanished.
Then a hand touched my shoulder.
I spun around.
Eleanor Whitmore stood behind me.
She'd slipped away from the window while Nathan was speaking to the officers.
“Listen carefully,” she whispered.
“Your son knows about Lily.”
“I know.”
“And somebody who looks like my dead father is inside my house.”
Her expression changed.
“Samuel.”
I stared.
“Who?”
“Thomas's brother.”
“My father didn't have a brother.”
Eleanor gave me a look of exhausted pity.
“Your father had a twin.”
My knees nearly buckled.
She grabbed my arm.
“Grace, the man at your house is Samuel Miller. He helped Nathan bury your mother.”
I looked at her.
“Then why is he wearing Dad's watch?”
Eleanor's lips parted.
For the first time, she seemed genuinely surprised.
“What watch?”
“The one I buried with my father.”
Her hand tightened around my arm.
“Show me.”
I held up Sarah's photograph.
Eleanor stared at it.
All the color drained from her face.
“Oh, Thomas,” she whispered.
“What?”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“Your father didn't leave the evidence in the locker.”
My heart began pounding.
“Where did he leave it?”
Eleanor touched the photograph.
“In that watch.”
I stared at the cracked glass.
“What evidence?”
“The only original recording of what happened at Saint Catherine's.”
Before I could ask another question, Nathan appeared beside us.
“Mother.”
Eleanor released me.
He looked at my phone.
Then at her.
“What did you tell her?”
“Nothing,” Eleanor said.
Nathan held out his hand.
“Come with me.”
She didn't move.
He stepped closer.
And Eleanor whispered something so quietly only I could hear it.
“Don't let him find out what Thomas recorded.”
Then she raised her voice.
“GET AWAY FROM ME!”
Nathan grabbed her arm.
Two officers turned.
Eleanor began screaming.
I barely noticed.
Because another message had appeared on my phone.
It was from Lily's school.
Ms. Miller, we need to discuss the unauthorized emergency pickup of your daughter.
Attached was a security photograph.
Rebecca walking out of the school office with Lily.
But they weren't alone.
A man stood beside them, holding the door.
He wore a brown work jacket.
Gray hair.
The same face as my father.
And the same silver watch.
Samuel hadn't simply been standing on my porch.
He'd been with Rebecca when she took Lily.
I enlarged the image.
Samuel's hand rested on my daughter's shoulder.
And suddenly Rebecca's warning made terrifying sense.
May you like
She hadn't taken Lily away from Nathan's people.
She'd taken Lily with the help of one of them.
