Chapter 3 - WHAT MY GRANDFATHER HID BEHIND THE CLOCK|
I had spent most of my childhood inside Bennett's Pawn and Repair.
The little shop smelled of furniture polish, old leather, and the peppermint candies my grandfather kept in a glass jar beside the register.
Every Saturday, he let me sit at his workbench while he repaired wristwatches and explained why broken things deserved patience.
He used to say that people often abandoned the very objects that mattered most because they couldn't see their value anymore.
But standing outside his shattered shop at two in the morning, I could barely recognize the place.
The front door had been forced open.
Broken glass covered the sidewalk.
And the wooden sign my grandfather had painted himself lay facedown beside the entrance.
"Stay behind me," Luca said.
I shook my head.
"This was my grandfather's home for forty-five years."
"Claire, someone may still be inside."
"Then they need to know they haven't frightened me away."
Luca studied me for a moment.
Then he nodded toward Marco, his driver and head of personal security.
Marco checked the entrance and called the police while we waited outside.
When the officers confirmed that the building was empty and allowed me to enter, I stepped across the threshold with tears burning my eyes.
Every drawer in the front counter had been pulled open.
Old jewelry boxes lay scattered across the floor.
Someone had torn photographs from their frames and emptied the filing cabinets.
They had even broken the little music box my grandmother used to play before she died.
I knelt beside it.
Its porcelain ballerina had snapped in half.
Luca crouched beside me.
"I'm sorry."
I brushed a piece of glass from its lid.
"My grandfather survived the Depression stories his parents told him, a robbery in 1993, and two heart attacks."
"He never let anyone make him leave this shop."
Luca looked around.
"Whoever did this knew exactly what they wanted."
He was right.
The cash drawer still contained several hundred dollars.
A tray of gold rings remained untouched beneath the counter.
The thieves hadn't come for money.
They had come for evidence.
Luca examined an overturned filing cabinet.
"Your grandfather kept financial records here?"
"Every transaction since the day he opened."
"Where are the older ledgers?"
I pointed toward the back office.
But when we entered, the tall metal safe stood open.
Its contents had been thrown across the floor.
And the shelf containing the records from the 1980s was completely empty.
"They took everything," I whispered.
Luca's jaw tightened.
"Perhaps not everything."
He looked around the workshop.
"Did Nathan ever hide important things somewhere unusual?"
For a moment, I couldn't answer.
Then I remembered something my grandfather used to tell me whenever I couldn't find the Christmas money he had hidden.
He would smile and tap the enormous grandfather clock beside his workbench.
"Time remembers what people forget, sweetheart."
I turned toward the back wall.
The antique clock was still standing.
It had been broken for years, its hands permanently fixed at eleven seventeen.
Grandpa always claimed the mechanism couldn't be repaired.
But once, when I was twelve, I had seen him open a narrow compartment beneath its wooden base.
He told me it was where he kept things that weren't ready to be discovered.
I hurried across the workshop.
"Claire?" Luca called.
I knelt beside the clock and pressed the small brass flower carved near its bottom.
Nothing happened.
Then I pushed the flower clockwise, just as Grandpa had shown me fourteen years earlier.
A concealed panel clicked open.
Inside lay a narrow metal box.
My fingers shook as I pulled it free.
Luca stood beside me.
"What's that?"
"I don't know."
The box was secured with a tiny padlock.
A small tag hung from its handle.
418.
I stared at the number.
It matched the transaction number written on the old receipt inside Luca's pocket watch.
For the first time that night, I understood how carefully my grandfather had planned everything.
I reached for the ring of old keys hanging beneath my blouse.
One of them was a small copper key he had given me shortly before his death.
He had told me it belonged to something I would recognize when the time came.
Until that moment, I had assumed it opened an old jewelry cabinet.
The key slid perfectly into the padlock.
When I lifted the lid, I found three objects wrapped in a piece of yellowed cloth.
The first was a photograph showing Frank Moretti standing outside the restaurant with my grandfather and another man.
The second was a thick envelope containing carbon copies of property transactions from 1986.
The third was a miniature audio cassette labeled October 2006.
Luca picked up the photograph.
"That's my father."
His voice softened.
"He looks exactly the way I remember him."
I watched his expression change as he examined the third man.
"That's Anthony Russo."
"The man convicted of murdering him?"
"Yes."
All three men were smiling in the photograph.
Frank had one arm around my grandfather's shoulders.
Anthony was holding a paper bag from the restaurant.
It didn't look like a photograph of enemies.
It looked like a picture of friends.
Luca placed it carefully inside his jacket.
Then he examined the carbon copies.
"These are documents from the original restaurant property."
"Are they important?"
"Maybe more important than the watch itself."
Suddenly, a noise came from the alley behind the workshop.
Marco moved toward the back door.
Someone was running away.
By the time he reached the alley, all he saw was a dark sedan disappearing around the corner.
But the person had dropped a phone while climbing over the fence.
The police recovered it as evidence.
Its screen was cracked, yet a new message remained visible before it locked.
Luca saw the sender's name.
His face hardened.
It was Vanessa.
May you like
And the message contained only six words.
DID YOU FIND THE SECOND BOX?
