Chapter 3 - The Stopped Watch
Victoria’s hand trembled as she gripped the handles of her tote bag. She stood up, smoothing the front of her cashmere sweater, trying desperately to pull her mask of superiority back into place.
"Don't be ridiculous," she said, her voice an octave higher than usual. "It’s a background check file. Nathaniel insists on vetting all household staff. It includes family history. It’s standard procedure."
"My husband died six years ago. I started working here five years ago. You moved in ten months ago." I took a step into the library, the soft carpet silencing my footsteps. "Why do you have his picture in your personal folders?"
"I don't have to explain anything to the help," she spat, pushing past me. Her shoulder collided with mine, hard, but I didn't budge. She practically ran down the hallway, the sound of her heels clicking frantically against the marble floor.
I stood in the library, the air suddenly thick and hard to breathe. A background check? That didn't make sense. Nathaniel Cross was thoroughly private, but he wasn't paranoid. And even if there was a file, why was it in Victoria’s bag, mixed with her personal belongings, on the morning she was being kicked out?
I found Mrs. Whitfield in the kitchen office, staring blankly at a grocery order.
"Mrs. Whitfield," I said, closing the door behind me. "Before Victoria met Mr. Cross... what did she do?"
The older woman frowned, adjusting her glasses. "She comes from old money, Elena. The Langs. Real estate, mostly. Slum-lord properties they dressed up as 'urban development.' But before she joined Nathaniel’s firm, I believe she worked for the city. Zoning, or perhaps building safety. Why?"
A cold knot formed in my stomach. Building safety.
"No reason," I lied, my voice shaking. "I just need to go home."
I drove faster than I should have. The autumn trees blurred past my window like streaks of fire. When I got home, the house was empty; Caleb had left for school.
I went straight to my bedroom closet. In the back, buried beneath heavy winter blankets, was a sturdy plastic storage bin. I hadn't opened it in four years. It held the things the fire department had returned to me in a small cardboard box. The things Daniel had on him when the roof of the West End apartment complex collapsed.
My hands shook as I popped the lid off the bin. The smell of old smoke—sharp, acrid, and heartbreakingly familiar—wafted up into the room. It was the scent that used to cling to Daniel’s hair when he came home from a shift. Now, it was a ghost.
I reached past his folded uniform shirt and pulled out a small, scuffed leather box.
Inside sat Daniel’s soot-stained wallet, his silver St. Michael medallion, and his watch.
The watch had been an anniversary gift from me. A heavy, stainless steel chronograph. The glass face was completely shattered, a spiderweb of cracks obscuring the numbers. The metal hands were permanently frozen at exactly 4:12 AM. The moment the building fell.
I ran my thumb over the broken glass. Daniel had never taken it off.
But that wasn't what I was looking for. I opened his soot-stained leather wallet. Most of the cash and cards had been returned to me long ago, but there was a small zippered pocket in the back that Daniel used to keep receipts in.
I unzipped it. It was stiff, the leather warped by heat and water. I pulled out a folded piece of paper. It wasn't a receipt. It was a business card.
The edges were singed, but the heavy cardstock had survived.
Victoria Lang.
Director of Residential Compliance and Safety.
City of Boston.
My breath hitched. The knot in my stomach pulled agonizingly tight.
Daniel didn't know Victoria. He was a firefighter; she was a bureaucrat. There was no reason for a city official's business card to be tucked into the hidden pocket of his wallet on the night he died in a collapsing building. Unless he had put it there for a reason. Unless she was the reason he was in that specific building.
I flipped the card over. On the back, written in Daniel’s messy, hurried handwriting, were three words:
Locked. No permits.
I stared at the ink until it blurred. The official story was that the West End fire was a tragic accident—faulty wiring in an old building. The landlord had paid a fine, but no criminal charges were ever filed. Daniel went back in because someone said a child was trapped on the fourth floor. He never made it out.
He found something that night. Something Victoria Lang was connected to.
Suddenly, the front door of my house clicked open.
"Mom?" Caleb’s voice echoed down the hall. "Are you home?"
I quickly shoved the card into my pocket and closed the leather box, wiping my eyes. "In here, sweetie."
Caleb appeared in the doorway. He looked pale, his backpack slung loosely over one shoulder. He wasn't supposed to be home for another three hours.
"Caleb? What’s wrong? Are you sick?"
He dropped his backpack onto the floor. It hit with a heavy thud. He looked at me, his jaw set in that exact same stubborn way Daniel’s used to when he had bad news.
"I got called into the guidance counselor's office," Caleb said, his voice tight with suppressed anger. "My scholarship for next year. The Firefighter's Memorial Fund."
"What about it?" I asked, standing up.
"It's gone," Caleb said. "They revoked it. They said there was a discrepancy in the family financial reporting. Mom, the foundation that funds that scholarship... it was recently acquired by Lang Developments. Victoria’s family."
The room spun. Victoria hadn't just insulted my clothes. She was dismantling my son's future.
"She was at my school last week," Caleb added, his voice breaking slightly. "I saw her walking out of the admin building. I didn't know who she was then, just that she looked out of place. Mom, why is she doing this?"
Before I could answer, a heavy, authoritative knock echoed from the front door.
Caleb and I froze.
I walked past him, down the narrow hallway, and pulled the curtain back from the front window.
May you like
Parked at the curb of our crumbling sidewalk was a sleek, black town car. Standing on our small concrete porch, wearing a tailored charcoal suit and looking deeply uncomfortable, was Nathaniel Cross.
And in his hand, he was holding a thick manila envelope.
