Chapter 3 - THE WATCH
The silence in the bathroom became absolute.
The only sound was the faint dripping of the faucet into the muddy bathwater.
My brain violently rejected Julian’s words.
"You're lying," I whispered, stepping between my husband and the terrified old man in the tub. "My father was a structural engineer. He wasn't a thief. And he certainly didn't work for your father!"
Julian’s chest rose and fell rapidly. He pushed past me, grabbing a thick towel from the stack and aggressively tossing it to my father.
"Get out. Dry off," Julian ordered, his tone stripped of all the charitable warmth he had paraded downstairs.
"Julian, stop it!" I yelled, grabbing his arm. "He doesn't know who he is! He has amnesia!"
Julian whipped around, his gray eyes blazing. "Does he, Mariana? Or is this the most brilliant con I've ever seen? Elias Thorne stole four million dollars in seed money from Sterling Construction. He ruined my father's reputation. He ran."
"He didn't run! Look at him!" I gestured wildly to the frail, trembling man struggling to wrap the heavy white towel around his waist. "He's been living on the streets! If he stole millions, where is it?"
Julian paced the length of the bathroom, his hands raking through his hair. "I don't know. But I know that face. My father kept a newspaper clipping of him in his desk drawer until the day he died. He blamed Elias Thorne for every hardship our family ever faced."
I felt the ground tilting beneath my feet.
When Julian and I met, we were twenty-one. I was a struggling college student waiting tables; he was the handsome heir to a rebounding construction empire. He had never mentioned the name Elias Thorne. And I had never spoken of my missing father, too ashamed of the rumors that he had abandoned my mother and me.
We had been married for fifteen years, sleeping in the same bed, building a life, completely unaware that our pasts were violently collided before we ever met.
"My father said he saw him in the old Southside warehouse before it burned down," Julian muttered, almost to himself, pacing near the vanity. "He said Elias went in to retrieve the stolen cash, and the roof collapsed."
"He didn't burn," I said fiercely, finding my voice. "He woke up at a construction site twenty years ago with a head injury. He told you that himself downstairs!"
The old man—my father—stood shivering in the corner, clutching the towel to his chest. He looked like a frightened child. The grime was mostly gone now, revealing deep wrinkles and a terrible, jagged scar running along his left hairline.
A head injury.
From a collapsing roof? Or from something else?
"Please," my father rasped, his voice shaking. "I don't want any trouble. I'll just put my old clothes back on and leave."
"You aren't going anywhere," Julian and I said in unison, though our motives were entirely different. I wanted to protect him; Julian wanted answers.
"I need to call the police," Julian said, reaching for his phone in his pocket. "If he's Elias Thorne, there are still active warrants for him."
"No!" I lunged forward, grabbing Julian's wrist. "You brought him into our house, Julian! You wanted to be a savior today. You don't get to throw him to the police when he doesn't even remember his own name!"
Julian stared down at me, his expression hardening. "He destroyed my family, Mariana."
"He IS my family!" I screamed back, the tears returning.
The loud argument was suddenly interrupted by a soft, metallic clinking sound.
Julian and I both turned.
My father had stepped forward toward the marble vanity. His trembling hand was reaching out, his dirty, calloused fingers brushing against something Julian had taken out of his pocket earlier and left by the sink.
It was Julian’s prized possession. A heavy, antique silver pocket watch. Julian’s father had given it to him on his deathbed.
"Don't touch that," Julian snapped, stepping forward.
But my father didn't flinch. Instead, he picked up the heavy silver watch. His thumb traced the ornate engraving on the back. A strange, eerie calm washed over his panicked features. His eyes, previously clouded with fear, suddenly sharpened with a chilling clarity.
"The ticking," my father whispered, holding the watch up to his ear.
"Put it down," Julian warned.
My father slowly lowered the watch, his eyes locking onto Julian’s face. For the first time since he walked into our home, he didn't look like a broken homeless man. He looked like a man who was waking up.
"It runs five minutes slow," my father said, his voice suddenly steady, stripped of its raspy tremble.
Julian stopped dead in his tracks. The blood drained from his face again.
"How do you know that?" Julian demanded. "It’s a custom gear. It’s always run five minutes slow."
My father didn't answer Julian. He turned the watch over, staring at the polished silver face.
"I remember the ticking," my father said softly, his eyes glazing over as a memory forced its way through a twenty-year barricade. "I was on the ground. My head was bleeding. It was so dark."
I held my breath, terrified to make a sound.
My father looked up, his pale blue eyes piercing straight through Julian.
"The man who hit me in the back of the head with an iron pipe," my father said, his voice dropping to a haunting whisper. "He leaned over me to make sure I was dead. I couldn't see his face... but I heard this watch ticking in his breast pocket."
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My father held the silver watch out toward Julian.
"Why do you have the watch of the man who tried to murder me?"
