Chapter 3 - THE WATCH IN THE APRON
My fingers closed around the heavy gold watch before Lily could look any closer at the dark red smudge on its cracked crystal.
I pushed the heavy oak door of Luca’s study shut and threw the deadbolt. Then I Engaged the steel security bar Luca had installed after a rival family tried to breach the house two winters ago.
“Claire?” Lily’s voice was small in the dim, leather-scented room. “Is that Mommy’s watch?”
My heart was hammering against my ribs.
Every housekeeper who had worked at the Moretti estate knew about the Patek Philippe pocket watch. It had belonged to Elena’s grandfather in Sicily. According to the police report from four years ago, Elena had been wearing it on a gold chain around her neck the night her Mercedes went off the Lake Shore Drive bridge into Lake Michigan.
The car had been recovered. Elena’s body never was.
And the watch had supposedly gone to the bottom of the lake with her.
Yet here it was, warm from Lily’s apron pocket, with fresh blood smeared across the broken Roman numerals.
“Sit on the leather sofa, sweetheart,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as my mother’s used to be during tornado warnings. “Let’s get this big uniform off you first. You must be freezing.”
“I’m not cold,” Lily said, though her knees were shaking as she climbed onto the Chesterfield sofa. She pulled her knees up to her chest. “The man in my closet smelled like peppermint cigars. Just like Uncle Arthur’s driver.”
I stopped mid-reach for the throw blanket.
“Did he see you, Lily?”
She shook her head hard, her crooked ponytail brushing the leather cushion.
“I heard him pulling the floorboards up under my dollhouse. The loose ones where Mommy used to hide her painting books. When the wood creaked, he dropped the watch and swore. So I backed out the door and ran down the back stairs to the pantry.”
Wait.
My mind raced backward through the evening.
“Lily… what time was that?”
“Before the guests came,” she said simply. “Right before Vanessa found me in the pantry and made me put on the black shirt.”
The room seemed to tilt beneath my feet.
Vanessa hadn’t put Lily in a catering uniform just to humiliate her or keep her out of Luca’s sight during the toast.
Lily had already run down to the servants’ quarters hiding from the intruder. And when Vanessa caught her there, Vanessa had put her in one of twelve identical black catering shirts—and kept her in the brightly lit kitchen corridor surrounded by hired staff.
Was it possible Vanessa had hidden her in plain sight?
No. That didn’t explain the cruel words. You’re embarrassing me. Your father doesn’t need you anymore.
Unless someone had been listening.
I looked down at the gold pocket watch in my hand. Using the corner of my white apron, I carefully wiped the edge of the brass casing.
The back popped open too easily. Not the front cover over the clock face—the rear inner dust cover.
Folded tightly inside the hollowed-out gear housing, where the mechanical movement should have been, was a tiny square of faded blue luggage claim paper.
The watchdidn't tick because the gears had been gutted years ago. It was a hiding case.
Just as I pinched the blue claim ticket between my fingernails, the internal house phone on Luca’s desk let out a sharp, single buzz.
Lily jumped.
I crossed to the mahogany desk and picked up the handset without pressing the intercom speaker.
“Claire.” It was Luca’s voice. Tight. Breathless. “Is she with you?”
“Yes, sir. The security bar is down.”
“Good. Stay away from the windows facing the driveway. Marco and I just cleared the nursery wing. Whoever was upstairs went out through the conservatory roof two minutes ago.”
“Mr. Moretti,” I said quickly, glancing back to make sure Lily couldn’t hear my whisper. “They were in the nursery before dinner started. Lily saw a man prying up the floorboards under her dollhouse.”
Silence hung on the line for two beats.
“Under the dollhouse?” Luca repeated, his voice dropping an octave. “Elena’s old studio floor?”
“Yes, sir. And the man dropped Elena’s gold pocket watch. The one from the bridge crash. There’s blood on the glass, and there’s a blue claim ticket hidden inside the casing.”
I heard a sharp intake of breath on the other end. Then the muffled sound of glass breaking somewhere downstairs, followed by shouting.
“Claire, listen to me very carefully,” Luca said rapidly. “Do not give that ticket to me if anyone is standing beside me when I come to the door. Put it somewhere on your person. Right now.”
“Why? Who’s down there with you?”
“The guests are gone,” Luca said grimly. “Except Arthur refused to leave. And when Marco searched Vanessa’s evening bag in the foyer… he found two one-way tickets to Montreal for midnight tonight.”
“For Vanessa and Arthur?” I asked.
“No,” Luca said. “In the names of Vanessa Bellini… and Lily Moretti.”
My breath caught.
If the Swiss boarding school paper was meant for seven o’clock tomorrow morning, why did Vanessa have plane tickets in her purse to take Lily to Canada at midnight tonight?
The Swiss transfer had been a decoy.
A fake paper trail to send Luca—or someone else—looking toward Europe while Vanessa took Lily across the northern border in the middle of the night.
Before I could ask another question, the heavy brass handle of the study door rattled violently from the outside.
Someone was trying to turn it against the deadbolt.
“Luca!” I whispered into the phone. “Someone is at the study door right now!”
“I’m at the front gates with Marco,” Luca barked, pure ice entering his voice. “That’s not me.”
“Claire?” a frantic female voice called through the thick oak panels.
It was Vanessa.
“Claire, open the door!” Vanessa cried, pounding her fist against the wood hard enough that I heard the diamond ring scrape the varnish. “Please, you don’t understand! My father didn’t bring that man into the house—Luca’s brother did! And he has a key to the back bookcases!”
May you like
I spun around toward the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves behind Luca’s desk.
Right behind the leather sofa where Lily was sitting, a narrow section of mahogany shelving clicked inward an inch.
