Chương 3 - The Watchmaker Who Remembered the Hidden Key

Hannah’s father was asleep when she reached home.

The apartment over the laundromat smelled faintly of detergent and the tomato soup she had left in the refrigerator that morning. A pharmacy bag sat beside Frank Parker’s chair with two bottles inside and one missing.

Hannah stared at the empty space where the third prescription should have been.

She had planned to pick it up after her shift.

Instead, she had spent the evening blocking a fake photographer, getting her wrist wrapped by a private doctor, and watching a mafia boss discover that his dead father had hidden something inside a watch.

Normal life seemed almost insulting by comparison.

She checked on Frank, found him breathing steadily, and left a note beside the coffee maker reminding him not to skip breakfast.

Then she sat at the kitchen table and looked at her brace.

Vanessa’s warning returned with perfect clarity.

A woman who needs a job should learn the difference between loyalty and curiosity.

Hannah had spent years making practical decisions. Practical decisions kept rent paid. Practical decisions meant taking the bus when the car sounded wrong, buying generic groceries, and pretending exhaustion was a personality trait.

Practical decisions did not involve the Moretti family’s dead advisers.

Her phone rang at 7:12 the next morning.

Mrs. Carter.

“Mr. Moretti says you’re on paid medical leave today.”

Hannah sat upright. “I’m what?”

“Paid leave.”

“I only bruised my wrist.”

“Yes, dear. I am aware that you remain inconveniently alive.”

Despite herself, Hannah smiled.

Mrs. Carter lowered her voice. “He also asked whether you would be willing to come in for one hour. Daniel needs you to identify something. You may refuse.”

The last sentence mattered.

Hannah looked toward her father’s closed bedroom door.

“Will I still be paid if I refuse?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’ll come.”

An hour later, Daniel met her at the side entrance of the Moretti estate.

The mansion felt different in daylight. Staff moved normally, but the wedding flowers from the previous evening still filled the hall, their pale arrangements now looking like decorations for an event no one was certain would happen.

Vanessa was not there.

Daniel led Hannah into the security office and placed three photographs on the table.

“Which one grabbed you?”

All three men wore gray suits.

Hannah pointed to Wallace immediately.

“This one.”

“You’re sure?”

“He has a small scar beside his right thumb.”

Daniel looked at the image.

The scar was barely visible.

“You notice a lot.”

“I clean houses. People become careless around anyone carrying a dust cloth.”

Luca entered behind him.

He had changed from formal black into a charcoal suit without a tie. The antique watch rested in his hand.

“Wallace admitted he removed the key from the rear compartment,” Luca said.

Hannah looked at the watch.

“When?”

“Before you entered the pantry. He gave it to Vanessa.”

“So she already has it.”

“Yes.”

“What does it open?”

“That’s what we’re trying to learn.”

Daniel slid another photograph across the desk.

It showed an old storefront with a faded clock hanging above the door.

“The Cicero address belongs to a former watch shop,” he said. “Vanessa drove there last night.”

Hannah remembered the final call Luca had received after she left.

“What did she do?”

“Stayed eleven minutes. Then drove to her mother’s house.”

“Did she take anything?”

“We don’t know.”

Luca turned the watch between his fingers.

“The former watchmaker is still alive.”

“Samuel Croce?” Hannah asked.

Daniel nodded. “Eighty-three. Assisted-living facility in Oak Park.”

Hannah looked between them.

“Then why do you need me?”

Luca answered.

“Because Wallace says Vanessa asked him whether ‘the girl’ saw him remove the key.”

A cold feeling moved through Hannah.

“He means me.”

“Yes.”

Daniel added, “We want to know exactly what you saw before anyone asks you to remember it differently.”

Hannah understood the implication.

“You think Vanessa might try to pressure me again.”

“I think she already did,” Luca said.

He placed a sheet of paper on the table.

It was not a loyalty agreement or a nondisclosure contract.

It was a formal statement prepared by an attorney, documenting Hannah’s account of the pantry incident and her injury.

“If you’re willing,” Luca said, “read it. Correct anything wrong. Sign only if it is accurate. You get a copy.”

Hannah stared at him.

“You’re making a record.”

“I should have had systems that made it safe for you to report this yesterday.”

That was not an apology exactly.

It was closer than she had expected.

She read every line.

Two details were wrong. Wallace had grabbed her at 4:07, not around four-thirty, and Vanessa had said “stop interfering,” not “leave him alone.”

Daniel corrected both.

Hannah signed.

Daniel made two copies. One went into the estate legal file. The other he handed to Hannah in a plain envelope.

“Keep it somewhere that does not belong to us,” he said.

That detail mattered more than Hannah expected. For once, the record of what happened to her would not exist only inside a powerful family’s system. She slipped the envelope into her bag.

Then Luca said, “I’m going to speak with Croce.”

She nodded.

“You don’t need to come.”

“I know.”

She looked at the photograph of the old watch shop.

“Can I?”

Daniel glanced at Luca.

Luca asked, “Why?”

“Because yesterday I told myself the case wasn’t my responsibility. That choice lasted until the man came back. I’d rather know what I’m standing in.”

Luca considered her answer.

“Fine.”

Oak Park was bright and cold when they arrived.

Samuel Croce lived in a private assisted-living residence with polished floors, framed landscapes, and a receptionist who made Daniel surrender his weapon before allowing him beyond the lobby.

Hannah noticed Luca did not object.

Croce sat near a window repairing a wooden music box with a magnifying lens clipped over one eye.

He was thin, white-haired, and alert.

When Luca approached, the old man’s hands stopped.

For several seconds, he stared at him.

“Enzo’s boy.”

Luca sat across from him.

“I’m forty now, Mr. Croce.”

“Still his boy.”

His gaze shifted to Hannah, then Daniel.

“You brought witnesses.”

“I brought people I trust.”

Something in Hannah tightened at the word.

Croce removed the magnifying lens.

“Your fiancée came yesterday.”

Luca did not react visibly.

“What did she want?”

“The same thing you want.”

“The key?”

Croce’s eyebrows lifted.

“So you found the watch.”

Luca placed it on the table.

Croce touched the case with two fingertips.

“I built that compartment.”

“For my father?”

“Yes.”

“What did the key open?”

The old man looked toward the hallway as if eleven years had suddenly become close enough to overhear them.

“Your father came to me three days before he died. He had a small brass key and a problem he refused to explain.”

“What problem?”

“He said if anyone came asking about the key, I should tell them nothing unless Anthony DeLuca was standing beside them.”

Luca’s jaw tightened.

“Anthony is alive.”

Croce’s face changed.

“You’ve seen him?”

“No.”

“Then don’t say alive like you know it.”

Daniel leaned forward. “We have confirmation.”

“From whom?”

“A private investigator.”

Croce gave a humorless laugh. “That is not confirmation. That is a man billing by the hour.”

Hannah almost smiled.

Luca did not.

“Vanessa knew Anthony might be alive. Why?”

Croce looked at him for a long moment.

“I don’t know.”

It sounded true.

“What does the key open?” Luca asked again.

Croce sighed.

“A safe-deposit box at Union Trust.”

Daniel immediately took out his phone.

Croce raised one finger.

“Old Union Trust. The bank merged years ago. Records went to Midwestern Federal.”

“Box number?”

“Four seventeen.”

Luca’s eyes narrowed.

“What is inside?”

“I never knew.”

“Vanessa asked you this?”

“She asked about the box. She already had the key.”

Hannah felt Luca go still beside her.

“She showed it to you?”

“Yes.”

“So she reached the shop before going to her mother.”

Croce nodded. “She found an old repair ledger I left in a wall cabinet. The number was there.”

Daniel muttered something under his breath.

Vanessa had not gone to Cicero hoping to discover what the key opened.

She had discovered it.

And now she had a head start.

Croce picked up the watch again.

“There was one other thing.”

Luca waited.

“Your father told me the key mattered only if Anthony failed to come home.”

“What does that mean?”

“I asked him. He told me I was better off not knowing.”

“That sounds like him.”

For the first time, Croce smiled.

“Yes.”

Luca’s phone vibrated.

Unknown number.

He looked at the screen.

Then answered without speaking.

A man’s voice came through faintly enough that Hannah could not make out the words.

Luca’s face changed.

“Who is this?”

A pause.

Then he stood.

“No. You listen to me. If you’re Anthony DeLuca, you have eleven years to explain.”

Croce gripped the arms of his chair.

The voice on the phone spoke again.

This time Luca said nothing for several seconds.

When the call ended, Hannah asked, “Was it him?”

Luca looked at his father’s watch on the table.

“Yes.”

“What did he say?”

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Luca’s answer was quiet.

“He said my father wasn’t killed in a robbery.”