[COMPLETED] The Watch Behind the Locked Wedding Doors

Dr. Harris wrapped Hannah’s wrist in a soft brace and told her nothing was broken.

“Bruised tendons,” he said. “Painful, but you were lucky.”

Lucky was not the word Hannah would have chosen.

Mrs. Carter hovered near the bedroom door with the stiff concern of a woman who had worked at the Moretti estate long enough to know that concern should never look like gossip.

When Daniel appeared ten minutes later, Hannah already knew why.

“Mr. Moretti wants to see you.”

Mrs. Carter touched Hannah’s shoulder. “Tell the truth.”

Hannah almost laughed.

Truth was not one thing in the Moretti house. Truth had levels. There was the truth you knew, the truth you could prove, and the truth powerful people allowed to survive after everyone left the room.

Still, she followed Daniel.

Luca’s study was quieter than the rest of the house. Dark walnut shelves climbed to the ceiling. The fire had burned low. The antique watch sat on the desk beside its open black case.

Hannah stopped when she saw it.

Luca noticed.

“Is that what you saw him take?”

She nodded.

“Sit.”

This time the word was not a command meant to intimidate. He pulled out a chair and waited until she lowered herself carefully into it.

“What happened at the service entrance?”

Hannah looked at the closed study door.

Luca said, “Vanessa isn’t coming in here.”

That helped less than he probably intended.

“I was helping in the kitchen around four,” Hannah said. “A man arrived through the servants’ entrance. Vanessa brought him herself.”

“Wallace?”

“Yes.”

“Was he carrying the camera bag?”

“No.”

Luca’s eyes sharpened.

“What was he carrying?”

“A small black case.”

She pointed to the one on his desk.

“That one.”

Luca rested both hands on the edge of the desk.

“Continue.”

“I heard them arguing near the pantry. Vanessa said he’d promised to bring something with him.”

“What?”

“I couldn’t hear. The kitchen was loud.”

She hated the tremor in her own voice.

“When I went into the pantry, he had the case open. The watch was in his hand. I knew it belonged to your family because I’ve dusted the cabinet in here.”

“You tried to stop him.”

“Yes.”

“And he grabbed you.”

Hannah looked down at the brace.

“Yes.”

“Vanessa saw it?”

“She was standing beside him.”

“What did she do?”

Hannah forced herself to meet his eyes.

“She told me to stop interfering.”

Something changed in Luca’s face.

Not surprise.

Disappointment.

It was quieter and somehow more dangerous.

He picked up his phone.

“Daniel. Find out what Vanessa promised that man.”

A response came through the receiver.

“And Wallace?”

“Keep him here.”

He ended the call.

Hannah stood.

“Mr. Moretti—”

Luca looked up.

“There’s something else.”

She reached carefully into the pocket of her uniform apron and removed a small square of yellowed paper.

“When he opened the watch, this fell out.”

Luca did not take it immediately.

“Did Wallace see you pick it up?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Vanessa?”

“No.”

Only then did he accept it.

The paper had been folded so many times that the creases were white. Luca opened it slowly.

Three things were written in faded blue ink.

A name.

Anthony DeLuca.

An address in Cicero.

And a date from eleven years earlier.

Luca stared at the name.

Hannah knew instantly that it meant something.

“Who is he?”

For several seconds, Luca did not answer.

Finally he said, “My father’s closest friend.”

“Was?”

“He died three weeks after my father.”

Hannah glanced at the paper.

“Then why would his address be inside the watch?”

“That is an excellent question.”

Luca walked toward the window.

Eleven years earlier, the Moretti organization had survived two funerals and nearly collapsed between them. Enzo Moretti had been found dead in his car after what the police called a robbery. Anthony DeLuca, Enzo’s closest friend and financial adviser, had supposedly died in a highway fire before Luca could finish sorting his father’s affairs.

Luca had inherited an empire at twenty-eight and spent years making sure nobody confused grief with weakness.

He had never questioned the timing of Anthony’s death.

Not seriously.

There had been too many enemies and too many problems demanding immediate decisions.

Hannah watched his reflection in the glass.

“Maybe the paper is old.”

“It is.”

“Then maybe your father put it there.”

“He probably did.”

A knock sounded.

Daniel entered carrying a slim folder.

“Wallace is talking.”

Luca turned.

“About what?”

“He says Vanessa hired him six weeks ago.”

Hannah felt her stomach tighten.

Six weeks ago was around the time the engagement announcement had become public.

Daniel continued. “Not as a photographer. As a private investigator.”

Luca’s face did not move.

“What was he hired to investigate?”

Daniel looked at Hannah, then back to Luca.

“Anthony DeLuca.”

The room went silent.

Hannah looked at the paper again.

Luca asked, “Why would Vanessa be looking for a dead man?”

“Wallace says she didn’t believe he was dead.”

“Why?”

“He won’t say unless he gets some assurance you won’t put him in the river.”

Hannah’s eyes flicked toward Luca before she could stop herself.

He saw it.

“I don’t put people in rivers.”

Daniel’s mouth almost moved.

Luca added, “Often.”

Hannah was not sure whether that was humor.

Daniel clearly was.

“Wallace says he found DeLuca four days ago.”

Luca’s attention sharpened.

“Alive?”

“Yes.”

Hannah felt the room narrow around the word.

Daniel placed the folder on the desk.

“Wallace claims he told Vanessa. She paid him double his original fee and told him not to contact DeLuca again until she decided what to do.”

“Then why take the watch?”

“He says she needed something hidden inside it.”

Luca looked at the yellowed paper.

“Something besides this?”

“Apparently.”

Hannah thought of the pantry.

“Wallace opened the back.”

Both men looked at her.

“The back of the watch,” she said. “Not the regular cover. He used a little tool.”

Luca picked up the watch.

It was an old gold hunter-case model with his father’s initials engraved inside the lid. He turned it over.

A nearly invisible seam ran around the rear plate.

Daniel brought a letter opener.

Luca shook his head. “Too wide.”

Hannah remembered something.

“Mrs. Carter keeps sewing needles in the blue box outside.”

Daniel gave her an odd look.

“What?”

“It’s thinner.”

Luca’s mouth shifted faintly.

“Get one.”

Two minutes later, Hannah stood beside the desk while Luca worked the needle carefully into the seam. The rear plate lifted with a soft click.

There was no hidden document.

No microfilm.

No miraculous confession waiting inside.

Only a shallow compartment lined with black velvet.

Empty.

Except for a tiny indentation shaped like a narrow metal key.

Luca stared at it.

“Wallace took whatever was here.”

Daniel said, “He denies it.”

“Of course he does.”

Hannah leaned closer without touching.

“The paper wasn’t in that compartment.”

Luca looked at her.

“It fell from under the regular cover?”

“Yes.”

“So my father hid two things in the watch.”

Daniel’s phone vibrated.

He read the message and swore under his breath.

“What?” Luca asked.

“The address on the paper. Cicero. It isn’t a residence.”

“What is it?”

“A closed watch-repair shop.”

Luca looked at the watch in his hand.

The connection was too precise to ignore.

“Who owns it?”

“Property company bought it nine years ago. Before that, the tenant was a man named Samuel Croce.”

Hannah watched Luca’s face.

“You know him too?”

“No.”

Daniel did.

“I do,” he said. “Croce worked on antique mechanisms for Enzo. Safes. clocks. old locks. Anything he didn’t trust to regular repairmen.”

Luca’s gaze returned to the empty compartment.

A watchmaker.

A missing key.

A supposedly dead man.

And Vanessa searching for all three.

Daniel’s phone rang again.

He answered, listened, then held it slightly away from his ear.

His expression had changed.

“Boss.”

Luca waited.

“The front gate says Miss Bellini’s car is gone.”

Luca looked toward the study door.

“She left?”

“Five minutes ago. Driver says she told him her mother was ill.”

Hannah remembered Vanessa’s frozen champagne glass when Luca asked what had been taken from the kitchen.

“Do you believe her?”

Luca looked at the watch.

“No.”

Daniel was already moving.

“I’ll bring her back.”

“Don’t.”

Daniel stopped.

“If she thinks I suspect everything, she disappears behind her father’s lawyers before midnight.”

“So what do you want?”

Luca closed the watch and placed it in his pocket.

“I want to know where she goes.”

Daniel nodded and left.

Hannah stood.

“Am I allowed to go home?”

Luca looked at her brace.

“Yes.”

She took one step toward the door.

“Hannah.”

She turned.

“What you did tonight could have cost you your job.”

“I know.”

“Why did you stop him anyway?”

The question surprised her more than everything else.

She considered giving him the safe answer.

Instead she told him the truth.

“Because the watch belonged to your father. And because he was taking it through the servants’ entrance like everyone who worked there was too unimportant to notice.”

Luca studied her for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

“Mrs. Carter will arrange a car. You shouldn’t drive with that wrist.”

“I can manage.”

“I know.”

The answer stopped her.

It was not the same as saying she should have to.

Hannah left the study.

Luca remained alone beside the dying fire.

A few minutes later, Daniel called.

Vanessa’s car had not gone toward her mother’s house.