The Voice On The Speakerphone

The shattered pocket watch lay on the white tile, the twisted silver casing gleaming under the harsh kitchen lights.

Adrian stopped halfway to the door. He turned around, his eyes locking onto the heavy object on the floor.

He walked over and slowly picked it up.

He didn't speak. He just stared at the blackened metal. The hands were permanently fused to the dial at 11:42.

“I’ve never seen that before,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “I swear, Mr. Moretti. I don't know how it got in my coat.”

Adrian turned the watch over in his palm.

“I know you don't,” he said softly. “Because this watch has been locked in my personal safe for fourteen years.”

The air left my lungs.

“Then how...?”

“Celeste,” Adrian said, his jaw tightening. “She had the combination. I gave it to her last week when she moved her jewelry in.”

Answer one: Celeste planted the watch in my coat tonight to frame me for theft, ensuring I would be fired and disgraced before I could ever accidentally uncover the truth about my mother.

Open two: Why plant this specific watch?

Adrian rubbed his thumb across the soot-stained silver.

“This was Nico’s watch,” Adrian explained, his voice thick with a dark, heavy sorrow. “He was wearing it the night he died. The police said it stopped on impact when the car rolled at 11:42 PM.”

I looked at the blackened metal. Something didn't make sense.

“Mr. Moretti,” I said cautiously. “You said Nico died in a car crash.”

“He did.”

“Then why is the watch scorched?” I pointed to the deep, black burn marks blistering the silver. “A car flipping on a wet highway doesn't melt silver. That watch was in a fire.”

Adrian froze.

He stared at the scorch marks. For fourteen years, he had accepted the police narrative. He had accepted that the black marks were just oil or road dirt from the wreck.

But I had spent my childhood watching my mother burn old rags in a metal barrel behind our trailer. I knew what fire did to metal.

Adrian’s eyes darkened. “Daniel!”

The kitchen doors opened instantly. The head of security stepped back in.

“Boss?”

“Where is Celeste?”

“Locked in the library, sir. Two men on the door.”

“Bring her out to the driveway,” Adrian commanded. “Put her in the back of my car. We’re taking her with us.”

Daniel nodded and disappeared.

Adrian looked at me. The grief in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a cold, terrifying clarity.

“You’re right, Kate,” he said quietly. “There was no fire in the police report. Which means someone lied.”

Ten minutes later, I was sitting in the back seat of Adrian’s black SUV.

Celeste was shoved into the seat next to me. She was weeping silently, her makeup ruined, her red silk dress wrinkled. She wouldn't look at me. She wouldn't look at Adrian, who was driving the vehicle himself, his knuckles white on the steering wheel.

The drive to the Halsted Street restaurant took twenty minutes.

The city lights blurred past the rain-streaked windows. Nobody spoke a word.

Adrian pulled up to the curb of the old, brick building. The sign above the door read Teresa’s. It was dark inside. Closed for the night.

Adrian cut the engine.

He turned around in his seat, looking directly at his fiancée in the darkness of the car.

“We’re going inside,” Adrian said. “You’re going to walk through the kitchen door, exactly like my mother’s letter instructed. And then you are going to tell me the truth about the fire.”

Celeste flinched. “What fire? Adrian, I don't know what you’re talking about.”

Adrian held up the scorched pocket watch.

Celeste’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at the frozen hands at 11:42.

“You planted this in Kate’s coat tonight to frame her,” Adrian stated. “You wanted her out of the house because you realized who she was. But you made a mistake. You handed me the proof that my brother didn't just die in a crash.”

Celeste shook her head, tears spilling over her cheeks. “I didn't plant it, Adrian. I swear.”

“Get out of the car.”

We stepped out into the freezing Chicago rain.

Adrian unlocked the heavy iron gate at the alleyway and pushed open the back door of the restaurant.

The kitchen smelled like garlic, old wood, and memories. The stainless steel counters gleamed faintly in the streetlights bleeding through the windows.

Adrian flicked on the overhead fluorescent lights.

“Fourteen years ago,” Adrian said, his voice echoing in the empty kitchen. “My brother died. My mother fired you. And Sarah fled the city. Tell me why.”

Celeste stood in the center of the kitchen, shivering in her wet silk dress.

“I told you,” she wept. “I grabbed the wheel. The car crashed. That’s all I know.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not!”

Suddenly, a heavy set of footsteps echoed from the front dining room.

We all turned.

Sal, the old restaurant owner, walked into the kitchen. He was wearing a thick wool cardigan over his pajamas, holding a heavy wooden baseball bat. He lowered the bat when he saw Adrian.

“Adrian?” Sal grunted, confused. “I saw the lights come on. What the hell are you doing here at midnight?”

Then, Sal saw Celeste.

The old man’s face went completely rigid.

“You brought her here?” Sal demanded, his grip tightening on the bat. “After what she did?”

Adrian looked at Sal. “She said she was in the car with Nico when it crashed.”

Sal let out a harsh, bitter laugh.

“In the car?” Sal spat, pointing the bat at Celeste. “She wasn't in any damn car, Adrian. She was right here. In this kitchen.”

Celeste let out a strangled cry and covered her face.

Adrian turned to the old man, his eyes wide. “What?”

“It was 11:30 at night,” Sal said, his voice trembling with an old, heavy anger. “I had just locked the front doors. Sarah was in the back, cleaning the stoves. Nico was waiting for her.”

Sal looked directly at Celeste.

“And then she walked through that back door,” Sal said, pointing at the alley entrance. “She was screaming. She had a can of gasoline from the shed outside.”

My heart stopped beating.

“She found out about the baby,” Sal whispered. “She locked the front dining room doors from the inside. And she set the kitchen on fire with Nico and Sarah trapped inside.”

Adrian stopped breathing.

I looked at the heavy, scarred wooden floorboards beneath my feet.

Suddenly, a glint of metal caught my eye.