Chapter 4 - THE VINTAGE WATCH
I kept the phone pressed to my ear, my bare feet silent against the hardwood floor as I moved toward the kitchen window.
“You’re unhinged, Daniel. The police are going to connect you to Richard Vance’s car.”
“Are they?” he chuckled darkly. “Go to the mailbox, Emily.”
I stepped out onto the damp morning grass, shivering in the cool Connecticut air. I pulled open the wrought-iron mailbox. Inside sat a small, velvet jewelry box.
“Open it,” Daniel whispered through the phone.
I popped the hinge. Resting on the black velvet was a vintage gold men's watch. I recognized it instantly. It was my father’s retirement watch. The one he was supposedly buried with six years ago.
“How do you have this?” I demanded, my voice finally shaking.
“Your father wasn’t the saint you thought he was, Em. He owed some very bad people a lot of money. I’ve been using the trust to pay them off. To protect you. To protect Margaret.”
“Liar.”
“Check the back of the watch.”
I flipped the heavy gold timepiece over. The custom engraving—To Arthur, For Thirty Years of Excellence—was still there. But beneath it, the casing had been pried open and clumsily snapped back together.
I used my thumbnail to pop the back plate off.
Inside, where the delicate gears should have been, sat a tiny micro-SD card.
“I didn't kill Richard,” Daniel said, his voice turning deadly serious. “Richard was the one extorting your father. I’ve been trying to clean up this mess. If you give that card to the police, Margaret goes to prison for fraud.”
The line went dead.
I ran back inside and locked the deadbolt. I plugged the micro-SD card into my laptop adapter. My hands were shaking so badly I dropped it twice.
When the files loaded, my stomach plummeted.
They were wire transfer records. Millions of dollars moved into offshore accounts in the Cayman Islands. But Daniel’s name wasn’t on the authorizing signatures.
Margaret’s signature was. Flawlessly forged on dozens of documents.
And the notary stamp authenticating every single illegal transfer? It was mine. My official state notary seal, applied to documents I had never seen.
Daniel hadn’t just stolen the money. He had built a flawless paper trail framing my mother and me.
I heard a soft rustling behind me. Mom was standing in the doorway, her bruised face pale as a ghost.
“Emily,” she whispered, pointing out the front window.
May you like
Two unmarked black SUVs had just pulled into the driveway. Detective Miller stepped out of the first one, followed by three men wearing windbreakers with FBI printed in bold yellow letters.
They weren't here for Daniel. They were here for us.
