Chapter 3 - The Watchmaker’s Daughter
The key was smaller than Elena remembered.
Brass.
Worn smooth along one edge.
A number had been stamped near its round head.
Mrs. Alvarez placed it on the desk between them.
Beside it lay the envelope Elena had used six nights earlier.
On the front, in her own handwriting, were three words.
Found under cylinder.
Dante stared at the key.
“The music box belonged to Luca.”
Elena nodded.
“Mrs. Alvarez told me.”
“He gave it to our mother. After she died, it stayed in his room.”
“Who knew Elena repaired it?” Ana asked.
Mrs. Alvarez looked miserable.
“I mentioned it at breakfast. Miss Whitmore was there.”
Dante’s gaze moved toward the corridor.
Vanessa had not been jealous of a conversation in the garden.
Not only jealous.
She had been trying to remove someone who had opened the wrong object.
Elena felt suddenly cold.
“My father used to hide spare keys in clock cases.”
Dante looked at her.
“What did your father do?”
“He repaired watches. Music boxes. Anything with gears.”
“His name?”
“Tomás Morales.”
Dante went completely still.
Marcus noticed.
“What?”
Dante took out his phone and searched an old photograph.
He turned the screen.
A younger Luca stood outside a workshop beside a smiling man wearing a brown apron.
Elena reached for the desk.
“That’s my father.”
Nobody spoke.
“He died seven years ago,” she said.
Dante lowered the phone.
“So did my brother.”
Ana pulled out a chair.
“Elena. Sit down.”
The dates were six weeks apart.
Luca’s supposed death had followed a car crash beside the river.
Tomás had been killed when his delivery van struck a barrier on an icy road.
Elena had been twenty-one.
Her father’s shop had closed before spring.
Her mother had spent years paying debts he had left behind.
Or debts they had been told he left behind.
“My mother knew your brother,” Elena said slowly. “She must have.”
“Call her,” Ana said. “Ask whether she wants to speak here or somewhere else.”
Lucia Morales answered from her hospital room.
At first, her voice was sleepy.
Then Elena said Luca’s name.
The silence that followed was immediate and terrible.
“Where did you hear that?”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Mom.”
“Did someone come to the apartment?”
“No.”
“Are you alone?”
Ana moved closer.
“Elena is with counsel, Mrs. Morales. She is not alone.”
Lucia began to cry.
An hour later, they were at the hospital.
Dante remained outside the room until Elena asked him to enter.
That mattered to her.
Not enough to erase the evening.
Enough to notice.
Lucia looked at him and covered her mouth.
“You look like him.”
Dante sat carefully.
“Did my brother come to your husband?”
She nodded.
“He brought a damaged mechanism. Said something important was hidden inside.”
“The music box.”
“Tomás repaired it. Luca came back twice.”
“What was hidden?”
“I don’t know.”
Ana gently asked her to continue only with what she remembered.
Lucia twisted the blanket.
“After Luca disappeared, a man visited the shop. He said my husband should forget any conversations they’d had.”
“Who?”
“I never knew his name.”
“Did you report it?”
Lucia looked at Elena.
“We were frightened.”
Her daughter reached for her hand.
“After your father died,” Lucia continued, “another man brought papers. Said there were business loans. Said we’d lose the apartment if we argued.”
Elena’s throat tightened.
“Those were the debts?”
Her mother nodded.
For years, Elena had worked extra shifts to pay money she believed her father had borrowed.
Dante looked physically ill.
“Do you still have the papers?” Ana asked.
“In a blue folder. At home.”
Elena knew exactly where.
She had hated that folder for seven years.
Now she wanted to tear it open.
Instead, she called the neighbor who had a spare key and asked her to preserve it until Ana could arrange collection.
Dante rose.
“I need to tell you something.”
Elena looked at him.
“My family has legitimate businesses. It also has operations built on intimidation and illegal collections.”
“I know what people call you.”
“What people call me has been easier to live with than what I’ve actually done.”
Lucia stared at him.
Dante continued.
“I approved collections I knew relied on fear. I let my uncle handle matters I didn’t want explained. I cannot tell you tonight that none of that touched your family.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“Then don’t ask me to trust you.”
“I won’t.”
Outside the room, Marcus answered another call.
When he returned, his face had changed.
“The woman who helped Luca call us sent a location.”
Dante stood.
May you like
Marcus looked at Ana.
“She says he’s being moved tomorrow.”
