Chapter 4 - The Gold Watch Stopped At Midnight
We rushed back to the Gold Coast mansion.
The rain had turned into a torrential downpour.
When we walked into the grand foyer, James Rinaldi was sitting on a marble bench, holding a bloody towel to his forehead.
Marco stood over him.
“What happened?” Luca demanded.
Rinaldi looked up. His expensive suit was ruined. He looked terrified.
“I tried to go home,” Rinaldi stammered. “A black sedan ran my car off Lake Shore Drive. Two men pulled me out.”
“Vanessa’s men?” Luca asked.
“I don’t know. They hit me. Then they told me to give this to her.”
Rinaldi pointed a shaking finger at me.
I stepped back. “Me?”
Rinaldi reached into his pocket and pulled out a heavy object. He set it on the marble table.
It was a gold pocket watch.
Scratched, dented, and very old.
I walked over slowly. I picked it up.
It felt heavy in my palm. The gold was cold.
I clicked the top button. The cover flipped open.
The glass face was cracked.
And the hands were stopped exactly at midnight. 12:00.
I stared at it. A cold chill ran down my spine.
“Do you recognize it, Emma?” Luca asked softly.
“Yes,” I whispered. “It’s my father’s. He kept it in a locked box under his bed. He said it was broken.”
Luca frowned. “Why would they send you a broken watch?”
I looked at the hands. 12:00.
“It’s not just broken,” I said, my voice barely audible. “It’s a code.”
Luca stepped closer. “What code?”
“When Tommy and I were teenagers, we lived in a bad neighborhood. Dad gave us this rule. If we were ever in trouble, if we ever needed to hide, we were supposed to text him a time.”
I traced the cracked glass.
“Midnight. It meant: ‘I’m safe, but I’m being watched. Come to the sanctuary.’”
Luca’s eyes sharpened. “Where is the sanctuary?”
“It’s an old, abandoned church in Pilsen. Dad used to do maintenance there before it was condemned. He has keys to the basement.”
Luca turned to Marco. “Get the men. We’re going to Pilsen.”
“Wait,” I said, looking at Rinaldi.
I walked over to the wealthy real estate developer.
“Mr. Rinaldi,” I said. “You lost a cufflink in Vanessa’s dressing room tonight.”
He looked away. “I told you, I wasn’t upstairs.”
“You lied,” I said, my voice surprisingly steady. “Vanessa didn’t hand you a phone in the library. She handed it to you upstairs. While she was getting dressed.”
Luca watched me. He didn’t interrupt.
“Why were you in her dressing room, James?” Luca asked, his tone lethal.
Rinaldi broke.
“Because she was paying me!” he cried. “That offshore account? I set it up for her. She needed a way to move money without you noticing, Luca.”
“To pay who?”
“The people holding the boy,” Rinaldi confessed, burying his face in his hands. “Six years ago, she paid the clinic doctor to lie to you. She paid someone to take the baby far away. But the man she hired... he double-crossed her.”
I felt the air leave the room.
“He didn’t kill the baby,” Rinaldi continued. “He took him. And for six years, he’s been extorting Vanessa to keep the secret.”
Luca grabbed Rinaldi by the lapels of his ruined jacket, hauling him off the bench.
“Who?” Luca roared. “Who took my son?”
Rinaldi looked at me with terrified eyes.
“Her father. Thomas Reed.”
The foyer spun.
My father.
He was the blackmailer? He was the one holding a child hostage for money?
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “No, my dad is a good man. He can barely afford groceries. He doesn’t have half a million dollars!”
“Emma’s right,” Luca said, dropping Rinaldi back onto the bench. “Thomas Reed lives in a rented apartment. He doesn’t have the money.”
Luca looked at the gold pocket watch in my hand.
“Someone else took that money. And they took Thomas to find out where the boy is.”
He grabbed my arm. Gently, but firm.
“Let’s go to the church.”
We left Rinaldi with Marco and drove into the city.
The abandoned church in Pilsen was a massive stone structure, its stained glass windows boarded up with rotting wood.
We parked two blocks away in the alley.
Luca handed me a heavy flashlight. He held a gun in his right hand.
“Stay behind me,” he whispered.
We slipped through a broken side door. The air inside smelled of dust and old incense.
We navigated the dark, cavernous nave and found the stairs leading to the basement.
The heavy wooden door at the bottom was unlocked.
Luca pushed it open.
He swept the beam of his flashlight across the room.
It was an old storage cellar. Dust covered everything.
Except for one corner.
In the corner, an old mattress lay on the floor. Beside it were three empty juice boxes, a stack of coloring books, and a child’s blue winter coat.
I walked over to the coat.
I picked it up. It was tiny. Size 6.
“He was here,” Luca said, his voice breaking as he looked at the coloring books. “My son was here.”
I felt something hard in the pocket of the little blue coat.
I reached inside.
I pulled out a small, heavy object.
I shone my flashlight on it.
It was a bracelet.
Solid gold. Embedded with small diamonds.
And engraved on the inside clasp was a name.
Isabella.
Luca stepped back as if he had been burned.
“Where did you get that?” he demanded.
“It was in the coat pocket,” I said. “Who is Isabella?”
Luca stared at the bracelet, the color draining from his face.
“She’s my aunt. My father’s sister.”
He swallowed hard.
May you like
“And she’s been dead for ten years.”
TITLE: The Ticket For The Midnight Train
