Chapter 3 - The Watch That Could Destroy Two Families
Norah waited until morning to show Arthur the drawing. He studied it without speaking. Then he called his security chief, Gabriel Voss, and demanded the original police photographs from the bombing. Gabriel objected that the investigation had been closed. Arthur said that a closed investigation could still contain an open lie.
Leo overheard the conversation and accused his father of pretending to care now that a stranger had asked questions. Arthur's face tightened. Norah expected an explosion, but Arthur simply admitted that he had spent three years believing money and guards could keep the children safe. He had been wrong. Leo's anger faltered, though he did not apologize.
Norah asked to see the photograph Leo mentioned. The boy retrieved an old tablet and found the image: Arthur's study, crowded with condolence flowers, and a silver watch on the shelf. In the glass of a framed picture, a reflection showed Gabriel near the doorway. Arthur called Gabriel back, but the security chief insisted that many family possessions had been cataloged after the funeral. He offered to search the storage vault. Norah noticed he had not asked which watch they meant.
The following day Richard Hayes arrived at the Costa gates with Diane and a lawyer. They claimed Arthur had coerced their daughter into marriage. Their lawyer demanded access to Norah, citing a supposed family guardianship arrangement. Norah met them in the front hall with Arthur beside her. Richard addressed Arthur rather than his daughter, saying the deal had been misunderstood. Norah interrupted: she was twenty-six, legally competent, and unwilling to return. She asked the lawyer for a copy of the alleged guardianship order. He produced none.
Diane changed tactics. She cried that she had lost her daughter. Norah reminded her of the doctor's office and the lounge. 'You didn't lose me,' she said. 'You put a price on me.' Arthur told the visitors that any future contact must go through Norah's independent attorney. Richard left with a promise that the Costa name would not protect her forever.
That night a window in the east corridor shattered. The estate's alarms sounded. Guards swept the grounds and found no intruder, only a stone wrapped in a scrap of paper. The message read: STOP ASKING ABOUT THE WATCH. Arthur ordered the children moved to the interior rooms. Sam tried to appear brave, but his hands shook. Norah sat with him and helped him name five things he could see, four things he could feel, and three sounds he could hear. His breathing steadied.
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Later, while the children slept, Arthur showed Norah a photograph of his late wife, Elena. She had warm eyes and a mischievous smile. 'I loved her,' he said. Norah told him he did not have to stop loving Elena to make room for someone else in the house. Arthur looked at her for a long moment. He confessed that he had married Norah because he believed she would ask nothing of him emotionally. She answered that he had mistaken her silence for an absence of needs.
In the basement archive, Leo and Norah found an inventory sheet for Elena's belongings. The watch had been checked out by Gabriel Voss six weeks after the bombing. The authorization bore Arthur's signature. Arthur swore he had never signed it. Norah compared the handwriting with another document and found the same unusual flourish she had seen on Richard Hayes's debt agreement. Someone had been forging signatures across both families.
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