Chapter 3 - THE WATCH
Vincent did not run.
That made everything worse.
He stood in our doorway with sleet melting across the shoulders of his black coat, staring at the strip of paper in Lorenzo’s hand.
Mom moved in front of me.
“Emily, take Noah upstairs.”
This time I almost listened.
Then Vincent said, “That note isn’t what it looks like.”
Lorenzo’s eyes never left him.
“Then explain what it looks like.”
Vincent glanced at me.
At Mom.
At Noah.
“Not in front of the kids.”
“I’m not a kid,” I said.
Mom gave me a look.
Under any other circumstances, I would have stopped talking.
I didn’t.
“That’s my dad’s watch.”
Vincent closed his eyes for half a second.
Lorenzo noticed.
“So she stays,” he said.
Mom turned on him.
“You don’t make decisions for my daughter.”
“No,” Lorenzo said. “But someone made decisions about her father, and I’m beginning to think both of us were lied to.”
He placed the strip of paper on the table.
Vincent finally stepped inside and shut the door behind him.
For years afterward, I remembered the sound of that latch.
A soft click.
Nothing dramatic.
But it divided my childhood into two parts.
Before that sound, my father had abandoned us.
After it, I no longer knew what to believe.
Vincent removed his gloves.
“I picked Daniel up that night.”
Mom’s face twisted.
“You kidnapped him?”
“No.”
“His note says you took him.”
“He asked me to.”
Lorenzo’s stare sharpened.
“Why?”
Vincent looked at him.
“Because Daniel believed someone inside Moretti Transport was stealing from you.”
Lorenzo said nothing.
Vincent continued.
“He found discrepancies in fuel invoices, cargo weights, repair orders. Small amounts spread across dozens of accounts. He thought if he went through normal channels, whoever was behind it would know.”
Mom gripped the chair back.
“Daniel was a mechanic.”
“He was a mechanic who could add,” Vincent said. “And he paid attention.”
That sounded like Dad.
He used to make me check grocery receipts because he said numbers told stories if you were patient enough.
I felt my chest tighten.
“Where did you take him?” I asked.
“To meet Lorenzo.”
Lorenzo’s expression hardened.
“You never brought him to me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Vincent looked older suddenly.
“Because halfway there, Daniel changed his mind.”
Mom gave a bitter laugh.
“That’s your explanation?”
“He saw a car following us.”
“What car?” Lorenzo asked.
“A dark blue Buick.”
Lorenzo’s face stayed unreadable.
Vincent went on.
“Daniel panicked. Said the person he suspected must know he had talked. He made me pull into an old service station near Hamtramck.”
“Then what?”
“He got out.”
“In the middle of the night?” Mom asked.
“He said he had to protect you.”
Mom’s eyes filled, but she refused to let the tears fall.
“And you just let him walk away?”
“He had a gun pointed at me.”
I stared at Vincent.
Dad had owned an old hunting rifle once.
I had never seen him carry a handgun.
Mom seemed to have the same thought.
“Daniel hated guns.”
“I know.”
Lorenzo leaned against the counter.
“Did you see it?”
Vincent frowned.
“What?”
“The gun.”
Silence.
Vincent looked away.
“No.”
The answer changed the room again.
Lorenzo’s voice was quiet.
“You said he pointed a gun at you.”
“He had his hand inside his jacket. He told me not to follow.”
“So you assumed.”
Vincent’s jaw worked.
“I had reason to.”
“Or you needed a reason to explain why you lost him.”
Vincent looked wounded by that.
For the first time, I understood that he and Lorenzo were not simply boss and employee.
They had history.
Maybe friendship.
Maybe family without blood.
Vincent reached into his coat slowly.
One of the men outside shifted.
Mom pulled me closer.
Vincent removed a folded photograph.
“I’ve carried this for a year because I didn’t know what else to do with it.”
He placed it beside the watch.
The picture showed Dad standing outside a garage.
I knew his old brown jacket immediately.
But he was not alone.
Beside him stood a woman with dark hair.
She was younger than Mom.
On the back, someone had written:
March 18 — 7:10 a.m.
The morning after Dad disappeared.
Mom stared at the woman.
Her face changed.
Not fear this time.
Betrayal.
“Who is she?”
Vincent answered carefully.
“Elena Russo.”
Lorenzo straightened.
That name meant nothing to me.
It meant something to him.
“Your cousin?” Mom asked.
Lorenzo nodded once.
“Elena handled accounting for three Moretti warehouses.”
Mom pushed away from the table.
“So Daniel ran away with her.”
“No,” Lorenzo said.
“You don’t know that.”
“No,” he repeated, “but Elena didn’t run away with anyone.”
He picked up the photograph.
“She disappeared two days later.”
Nobody spoke.
Noah finished his bottle and made a small satisfied sound.
The ordinary sweetness of it nearly broke me.
Mom sank into a chair.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me any of this?”
Vincent looked ashamed.
“Because I was told Daniel had contacted you.”
“By who?”
He hesitated.
Lorenzo’s voice dropped.
“Vincent.”
“Your uncle.”
Lorenzo became perfectly still.
“Salvatore?”
Vincent nodded.
“He told me Daniel called Sarah from a bus station in Toledo. Said Daniel admitted he’d been stealing and was leaving the state.”
Mom stood so fast the chair legs scraped the floor.
“That never happened.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew where we lived.”
“I came by twice.”
My mouth opened.
Mom looked confused.
“No, you didn’t.”
“I drove past. Both times there was a white sedan parked across the street. Same plate.”
Lorenzo turned.
“You checked it?”
Vincent’s face tightened.
“It belonged to a private security company Salvatore used.”
Lorenzo looked toward the window.
For the first time, even he seemed shaken.
His uncle was not just family.
I could tell by the silence.
Mom gathered Noah close.
“You need to leave.”
Lorenzo faced her.
“Sarah—”
“No. All of you. Whatever happened to Daniel, we have survived eighteen months without your family in this house.”
“You survived by skipping meals.”
Mom flinched.
So did I.
Lorenzo immediately looked at me.
He regretted saying it.
I could tell.
Mom’s voice became thin.
“That does not make us yours to rescue.”
“No.”
He picked up the watch and placed it back down carefully.
“But if my family had something to do with Daniel disappearing, then I owe you the truth.”
“I don’t want what you owe.”
“I think Emily does.”
Mom looked at me.
I wished he had not said that.
Because he was right.
I wanted Dad back.
But if I could not have that, I wanted to know why.
I stared at the photograph.
Something bothered me.
Dad’s jacket.
His hand.
The garage behind him.
Then I saw it.
“Wait.”
I picked up the picture.
Dad’s left wrist was visible.
Bare.
Mom looked at the watch on the table.
I pointed.
“If this picture was taken the morning after he disappeared, and he wore that watch every day…”
Lorenzo’s eyes narrowed.
“…then he didn’t have it anymore,” he finished.
Mom looked confused.
“So?”
I turned the photograph over again.
March 18.
Then I looked at the watch.
“This wasn’t mailed three days after he disappeared.”
Mom frowned.
“Yes, it was.”
“Who checked the mail?”
She stared at me.
I already knew the answer.
“Aunt Lisa,” I whispered.
Mom’s face went white.
The same Aunt Lisa I had meant to text.
The same aunt whose number was one digit away from Lorenzo Moretti’s.
The same woman who had told Mom she found Dad’s watch in our mailbox.
Lorenzo took the photograph from my hand.
His voice was soft.
“Sarah, where is Lisa now?”
Mom did not answer.
She was staring at the silver watch as if it had become something poisonous.
May you like
Then she whispered the one fact none of us had expected.
“She works for Salvatore Moretti.”
