Chapter 5 - THE BROKEN CLOCK
I stared at the photograph until the edges blurred.
“He’s dead,” I said, my voice sounding hollow in the massive foyer. “I buried him. I paid for the headstone. I’m still paying his medical debts.”
Adrian handed the photograph to Marcus.
“Get the cars ready. We’re going to the docks.” He turned his devastating gaze onto Victoria. “You’re coming with us. If this is a trap, you’re the first one to bleed.”
Victoria didn’t argue. She looked as terrified as I felt.
I rode in the backseat of Adrian’s SUV. He drove.
The silence was suffocating.
I pulled the silver pocket watch from the pocket of my housekeeping dress.
The one I had found in the green box.
“If my grandfather is dead,” I murmured, running my thumb over the cracked glass, “and the man in the photo is wearing his wristwatch... whose pocket watch is this?”
Adrian glanced at me in the rearview mirror.
“Open the back casing.”
I found the tiny latch and pried it open with my fingernail.
Inside the brass gears, something was jammed into the mainspring.
A tiny, folded piece of grid paper.
I pulled it out and smoothed it flat.
It was a blueprint.
Not of a building. Of a shipping container.
Written in the corner were the numbers: #4092-B.
“Adrian,” I said, leaning forward. “Container 4092-B. Does that mean anything to you?”
The tires screeched slightly as Adrian’s grip tightened on the wheel.
“That’s not a standard shipping container. That’s a refrigeration unit. We use them for transporting pharmaceuticals.”
“Or people,” Victoria whispered from the passenger seat.
We arrived at the South Point docks ten minutes later.
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour.
Dozens of shipping containers were stacked like metal mountains under the harsh yellow floodlights.
Adrian’s men fanned out, moving silently through the shadows.
Adrian drew his weapon and motioned for me and Victoria to stay behind him.
We wove through the labyrinth of rusted metal until we saw it.
A white refrigeration container sitting apart from the rest.
#4092-B.
The heavy steel doors were chained shut, secured by a heavy brass padlock.
Adrian didn’t hesitate. He raised his gun and shot the padlock twice.
The metal shattered.
He pulled the heavy doors open.
Cold air poured out into the humid night.
“Lily!” Adrian yelled, rushing inside.
I followed him into the freezing darkness.
The container was empty.
No chair. No ropes. No little girl.
But hanging from the ceiling on a meat hook was a heavy winter coat.
A woman’s coat.
Victoria gasped. “That’s Elena’s.”
Adrian walked up to it.
He touched the fabric. It was stiff with cold.
He reached into the pocket and pulled out a small, velvet jewelry box.
He opened it.
Inside was a simple gold wedding band.
But it wasn’t his wife’s ring.
Adrian read the inscription inside the band.
His face went completely blank.
He turned around and looked at me.
“Anna. What was your mother’s name?”
My heart hammered against my ribs. “Clara. She died when I was seven. Why?”
Adrian held up the ring.
“The inscription says: To Clara. My heart, my life. - Elias.”
Elias.
My father. The man who abandoned my mother before I was born.
“I don’t understand,” I stammered, stepping back. “Why is my mother’s ring in your dead wife’s coat?”
Before Adrian could answer, the heavy steel doors of the shipping container suddenly slammed shut, plunging us into absolute darkness.
The heavy slide of a lock echoed from the outside.
Then, a voice came through the ventilation grate.
May you like
A voice I hadn’t heard in twenty years.
“Because, Anna,” the man’s voice rasped. “Your grandfather didn’t just fix pianos. He fixed mistakes. And you are the biggest mistake I ever made.”
