Chapter 3 - THE WATCH THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN BURIED
Nobody spoke.
Not even Gavin.
Camilla stood in the center of the foyer surrounded by chandeliers, champagne, military police, billionaires, and the wreckage of a story she had believed for almost twenty years.
Colonel Reed broke the silence.
“Thomas Mercer was not abandoned.”
Camilla stared at him.
“I saw the report.”
“You saw two pages.”
“I saw enough.”
“No. You saw a photocopy Gavin gave you.”
Gavin sighed.
“This is getting ridiculous.”
Reed turned on him.
“The official after-action report states that Sergeant Thomas Mercer voluntarily returned to a damaged vehicle after civilians were spotted near the blast zone.”
Camilla’s face tightened.
“No.”
“He pulled Andrew out first.”
“No.”
“Then Thomas went back.”
“Stop.”
“Andrew followed him.”
Camilla slapped both hands over her ears.
But Reed kept his voice steady.
“Your husband died after a second explosion. Andrew carried him almost two miles before evacuation.”
Camilla’s knees buckled.
Paige rushed down the stairs and caught her.
For a moment, I forgot every terrible thing Camilla had done to me.
I saw only a widow learning that the story she had built her anger around had been poisoned from the beginning.
Then I remembered the bedroom door.
The deadbolt.
The years of insults.
The way she had tried to burn my father’s uniform.
Pain could explain cruelty.
It did not erase it.
Camilla turned toward Gavin.
“You told me Andrew ignored the evacuation order.”
Gavin remained calm.
“Because that was what Thomas’s squad believed.”
Colonel Reed shook his head.
“No soldier in that unit ever said that.”
“You expect her to trust you?”
“I expect her to trust the official record.”
Gavin’s smile faded.
Camilla walked toward him.
Slowly.
“You gave me that report at Thomas’s funeral.”
“I gave you what I had.”
“You told me Andrew saved himself.”
Gavin’s eyes hardened.
“And what did Andrew do afterward? He stepped into Thomas’s life. His wife. His daughters.”
“He did not steal us from Thomas,” Paige said.
Everyone looked at her.
She was nineteen and usually spoke as if the world existed to inconvenience her.
Now her voice sounded small.
“Dad was dead.”
Camilla flinched.
Paige glanced at me.
Then looked away.
Colonel Reed turned toward the security guards.
“Who hired your firm?”
The man who had pinned me down rubbed the back of his neck.
“Mercer Asset Management.”
Camilla stared at him.
“No. I approved household security.”
“Yes, ma’am. But tonight’s tactical contract came through Mr. Mercer’s office.”
Gavin’s expression finally changed.
Barely.
But I saw it.
The first crack.
“You ordered them to stop me?” I asked.
Camilla opened her mouth.
Then closed it.
She had screamed the command.
That part was hers.
But the men had already been waiting for it.
Gavin had expected trouble.
Colonel Reed seemed to reach the same conclusion.
“What did you think she might find?” he asked him.
Gavin gave a soft laugh.
“You people are turning a family dispute into a conspiracy.”
“Restricted technical property was included in a private sale without disclosure.”
“That was an accounting error.”
“Then you won’t mind us examining the transaction.”
“I mind soldiers treating a civilian home like occupied territory.”
“This isn’t about your sister’s house anymore.”
Ward, the buyer, stepped away from the fireplace.
“I would also like to know what exactly I was purchasing.”
Gavin looked at him.
“We can discuss that privately.”
“No,” Ward said. “We cannot.”
For the first time, Gavin looked trapped.
Then Brooke descended the stairs.
She had been silent until then.
Older than Paige, sharper, and far more like Camilla.
She walked toward us with her arms crossed.
“This is insane.”
I looked at her.
“Which part?”
“You climbing down a wall in a homemade costume? Soldiers crashing Mom’s party? Everyone pretending Dad hid treasure maps in his clothes?”
“He wasn’t your father.”
The words left my mouth before I could stop them.
Brooke’s expression went still.
I regretted it immediately.
Not because it was false.
Because I knew exactly what it felt like to have someone reduce a father to blood.
Brooke looked down.
That was when I saw the watch.
A heavy military field watch circled her wrist.
Its leather strap was cracked with age.
The metal case was scratched near the crown.
I knew those scratches.
I had made one of them when I was eight.
My father had let me wear the watch at the kitchen table.
I dropped it onto the tile.
He laughed and said, “Now it has character.”
I crossed the room before I knew I was moving.
“Where did you get that?”
Brooke stepped back.
“What?”
“The watch.”
She looked at her wrist.
My father’s watch.
The watch that had been on him every day I remembered.
“My mother gave it to me.”
Camilla’s head snapped up.
“I did not.”
Brooke froze.
“Yes, you did.”
“When?”
“Three years ago.”
“No.”
Brooke’s confidence vanished.
“You said it was in the jewelry box.”
“I have never had Andrew’s field watch.”
Colonel Reed stepped closer.
“May I see it?”
Brooke pulled her arm back.
“No.”
“Brooke,” Paige whispered.
“It’s mine.”
“It belonged to Nora’s dad.”
Brooke looked at me.
For once, there was no cruelty in her face.
Only confusion.
Slowly, she unclasped it.
She placed it in Reed’s palm.
He turned it over.
Then his entire posture changed.
“Where did you really get this?”
Brooke swallowed.
“I told you.”
“Think.”
She looked at Camilla.
Then Gavin.
Her face drained.
“It wasn’t Mom.”
Gavin said nothing.
Brooke’s voice dropped.
“Uncle Gavin gave it to me.”
Camilla closed her eyes.
“When?”
“The night I graduated high school.”
Gavin shrugged.
“It was a family keepsake.”
Reed turned the watch over again.
“No.”
He showed us a tiny stamped inventory number on the back.
“This was logged with Andrew’s personal effects after his death.”
I stared at it.
“You mean it should have come to me?”
“It should have gone into the sealed effects box.”
“Then why didn’t it?”
Reed took a small tool from one of the military police officers.
He carefully opened the back of the watch.
Something metallic dropped into his palm.
A tiny brass key.
Stamped with one number.
Colonel Reed stopped breathing for a second.
Then he looked at Gavin.
“That key shouldn’t exist.”
Brooke whispered, “What does it open?”
May you like
Reed closed his fist around it.
“Something Andrew told me had been destroyed six years ago.”
