Chapter 20 - The Watch
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I froze entirely, the breath catching sharply in my throat. I knew that watch intimately. I had spent months agonizing over the custom engraving on the back. It was the watch Lucian was wearing on the morning he died, the watch the mechanic, Rowan Pike, had stolen from his bleeding wrist before the paramedics arrived. The police had never recovered it.
“Stop that man,” I said softly into the air, squeezing Leo's hand tightly and pulling him behind my legs.
The two plainclothes security officers moved with terrifying, fluid precision. Before the man in the green jacket could take ten more steps, they had flanked him, pinning his arms and quietly moving him off the main walking path and behind a large stone monument, out of the public eye.
I walked over slowly, my heart pounding in my ears.
The man was terrified. He was young, maybe twenty-five, with dirt under his fingernails and panic in his eyes.
“I didn't do nothing! I didn't steal it!” he stammered, pulling against the guards.
“Where did you get that watch?” I asked, my voice cold, channeling every ounce of the authority Lucian had left me.
“A pawn shop!” he cried out. “In Vegas! Two years ago! The guy said it was authentic, but the engraving was scratched up so he sold it cheap. Please, lady, I have the receipt in my wallet!”
One of the guards checked the wallet, nodding to me. The name didn't match Pike's missing brother. He was just a guy who bought a stolen watch.
I reached out, my hand trembling slightly, and unbuckled the leather strap from his wrist. He didn't fight me. I turned the heavy rose-gold timepiece over in my palm. There, faintly visible through desperate scratches meant to hide it, was my handwriting, engraved into the metal: For my fortress. Always.
I looked at the terrified man, then pulled a thick stack of cash from my purse—far more than he had paid—and shoved it into his jacket pocket.
“Go,” I whispered.
The guards released him, and he ran.
I stood in the park, clutching the cold metal to my chest. Leo tugged gently on my coat.
“Mom? What is that?”
May you like
I knelt down on the pavement, tears finally falling freely, and placed the watch into my son’s small, warm hands.
“It’s your father’s,” I said, smiling through the tears. “He finally came all the way home.”
