Chapter 4 - THE CHRISTMAS WATCH
I knew my father’s smile.
That was what destroyed me.
Not the coat.
Not the younger face.
Not the impossible sight of his hand on Kamal’s shoulder.
The smile.
Dad always smiled with one side of his mouth higher than the other, like he knew something mildly amusing that no one else had noticed.
There was no mistake.
“That’s my father.”
Kamal said nothing.
His sixteen-year-old self stared out of the photograph with the stubborn expression of a boy who had no idea his life was about to split in half.
I turned the picture over.
A date had been written there.
DECEMBER 24, 2003.
One year before Leyla disappeared.
Below the date were my father’s initials.
E.B.
Kamal took the photograph from me.
“You never saw this?”
“No.”
“My mother knew your father.”
“So did you.”
“I don’t remember him.”
“You were sixteen.”
“I remember every man my father brought into our home.”
“Maybe it wasn’t your home.”
Kamal looked at the background.
A fireplace.
Christmas garland.
A narrow painting of sailboats.
His eyes narrowed.
“It was my uncle’s house.”
“Could my father have worked for him?”
“Your father was an accountant?”
“Yes.”
“What firm?”
“Harrison, Bennett and Cole.”
Kamal’s gaze snapped toward me.
I had never seen recognition arrive so quickly.
“You know it.”
“My father used them.”
My skin prickled.
“For what?”
“International acquisitions.”
The answer was becoming obvious.
“My father handled your family’s accounts.”
“Possibly.”
“Why didn’t you know his name?”
“Because my father kept business between departments.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It was not.”
At least he knew.
Selim cleared his throat.
“We still have a missing item.”
Kamal looked toward the empty case.
“What was stored there?”
Selim checked the inventory tablet.
“A silver cigarette case. Leyla’s train pass. Two letters. A silk scarf. And one photograph album.”
“All gone?”
“No.”
He pointed.
“The cigarette case is missing.”
Kamal swore.
“What was inside?”
“Nothing, according to the inventory.”
Kamal’s expression suggested otherwise.
I stepped closer.
“What was actually inside?”
He looked at me.
“A key.”
I held up the brass key tied with red ribbon.
“This one?”
“No.”
“What did your mother’s key open?”
“I don’t know.”
I almost screamed.
Every answer came with another locked door.
My phone vibrated.
A message from my apartment building’s doorman.
MS. BENNETT, MR. YILMAZ’S DRIVER IS HERE TO COLLECT YOUR CHRISTMAS WATCH.
I stared at the screen.
Kamal was standing directly in front of me.
“My watch.”
“What?”
“Someone sent your driver.”
“I did not.”
The blood left my face.
I called the doorman immediately.
He answered.
“Miss Bennett?”
“Do not give anyone my watch.”
A pause.
“Oh.”
My heart stopped.
“What does that mean?”
“The gentleman already went upstairs.”
Kamal took the phone.
“Who authorized him?”
“He had Miss Bennett’s written permission.”
“I didn’t give anyone permission,” I said.
The doorman sounded frightened now.
“He showed me a note.”
“Call the police,” Kamal said. “Lock the building.”
We were moving before the call ended.
Snow had thickened outside.
Kamal’s car shot downtown while I sat beside him trying not to imagine a stranger inside my bedroom.
“You were right,” I said finally.
He turned.
“About what?”
“I should have left the city.”
His face tightened.
“No.”
That surprised me.
“You told me to.”
“I was wrong.”
“You don’t say that often, do you?”
“No.”
“Why were you wrong?”
“Because running would have left you without information.”
I looked at him.
He stared toward the road.
“And because I was deciding for you.”
The words mattered more than I wanted them to.
My apartment building was surrounded by police when we arrived.
Nothing had been smashed.
Nothing overturned.
Whoever entered had known exactly where to look.
The watch box sat open on my dresser.
Empty.
But something had been left behind.
My father’s old brown leather gloves.
I stared at them.
“They were in storage.”
Kamal examined the room.
“Where?”
“With Daniel.”
I touched one glove.
Inside was a folded receipt.
PENN STATION.
LUGGAGE STORAGE.
The number 224 was circled.
Underneath, someone had written:
YOUR FATHER KEPT HIS PROMISE.
Kamal looked at me.
“To my mother?”
“Maybe.”
The police wanted statements.
Kamal wanted private security.
I wanted answers.
For once, everyone lost.
Forty minutes later, after the officers cleared the apartment, I sat on the edge of my bed with my father’s glove in my lap.
Kamal stood by the window.
The same window from the photograph.
He looked out at the building across the street.
“Your stalker took the picture from the fourth floor opposite.”
“How do you know?”
“Angle.”
“That apartment is empty.”
“Not last night.”
I looked down.
“You really think this is about paintings?”
“No.”
“What changed?”
“The necklace.”
“Why?”
“The original pearls were my mother’s.”
“You already said that.”
“I didn’t tell you where she got them.”
I waited.
“My grandfather gave them to her after she married my father.”
“So?”
“He had a diamond snowflake added for her first Christmas in New York.”
I stared at the necklace box on my nightstand.
“The same design?”
“Almost.”
“What’s different?”
“The original pendant was hollow.”
My pulse skipped.
“So is this one.”
“Yes.”
“Did your father know?”
“Yes.”
“What was inside?”
“I don’t know.”
I gave him a look.
He almost smiled.
Then his expression softened.
“My mother once told me it held our family’s ugliest truth.”
That sentence stayed between us.
“What truth?”
“She refused to explain.”
“And then she vanished.”
“Yes.”
I thought of Daniel’s ticket.
Locker 224.
My father’s watch.
A missing cigarette case.
Two keys.
Six missing paintings.
And a woman who had apparently spent twenty-two years hiding from her own son to protect him.
“I want to go to Penn Station.”
“Tonight?”
“Yes.”
“It may be a trap.”
“So was the necklace.”
“And you’re still planning to wear it tomorrow?”
“No.”
A beat.
“Maybe.”
“Isa.”
“There’s that tone again.”
“I have several tones.”
“You have one. It means you believe everyone should obey you.”
His eyes darkened.
“Not everyone.”
“Just me?”
“Especially not you.”
The words came too quickly.
We both felt it.
I looked away first.
At Penn Station, locker 224 still existed in the long-term storage area.
The brass key from the archive fit.
Inside was a small leather case.
No paintings.
No money.
Just my father’s gold Christmas watch.
Whoever had taken it from my apartment had brought it here.
My hands shook.
“He wanted us to find this.”
Kamal nodded.
The back of the watch looked normal.
I remembered Daniel’s words.
It contains something.
I pressed along the case.
Nothing.
Kamal took it gently.
“May I?”
I nodded.
He used the edge of the locker key against the watch’s side.
A second back panel clicked open.
Inside was a tiny photograph.
Two women stood together beside a Christmas tree.
One was Leyla Yilmaz.
The other was my mother.
I nearly dropped the watch.
“They knew each other too.”
Kamal lifted another folded slip from beneath the photograph.
It contained a bank vault number.
And a sentence in my father’s handwriting.
IF LEYLA RETURNS, TELL ISA THE TRUTH ABOUT CHRISTMAS EVE.
I looked at Kamal.
“What happened Christmas Eve?”
His face had gone pale.
“Which Christmas?”
I turned the photograph over.
The date was there.
December 24, 2004.
The night before Kamal’s mother disappeared.
May you like
And beneath it, my mother had written:
KAMAL SAW EVERYTHING.
