Chapter 3 - THE WATCH THAT CONNECTED OUR MOTHERS
The silver rose was no bigger than a fingernail.
Most people wouldn't have noticed it.
But I'd spent twenty years wondering why my mother kept a matching symbol locked inside her jewelry box.
I stared at the watch.
"Where did your mother get that?"
Dominic looked confused.
"What?"
"The engraving."
He turned the watch over.
"A family emblem."
Adrian stepped closer.
His expression changed.
"That isn't a Rainer emblem."
Dominic frowned.
"What are you talking about?"
Adrian pointed toward the clasp.
"That's the Cross family rose."
Silence spread across the ballroom.
Then Dominic looked at Vanessa.
"Why would my mother's watch carry his family symbol?"
Vanessa didn't answer.
My heart began pounding.
I remembered my mother's old apartment in Queens.
The chipped dresser.
The silver earrings she wore every Sunday.
And the small velvet box she told me never to open until I was older.
Inside had been a photograph.
Two young women standing outside a hospital.
One was my mother.
The other wore a pearl necklace and held a newborn baby.
On the back, someone had written:
EVELYN AND ROSE — 1988.
My mother's name was Rose Bennett.
Adrian's mother had been Evelyn Cross.
And according to the photograph, they knew each other long before I was born.
"Adrian," I whispered.
He looked at me.
"Your mother knew mine."
His expression changed.
"What?"
I swallowed.
"I have a photograph."
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then Dominic reached for a chair.
He suddenly looked older than his forty-five years.
"My mother was named Margaret Rainer," he said.
I nodded.
"I know."
He stared.
"How?"
"Because she came to see my mother when I was seventeen."
The room went silent.
Dominic's face lost its color.
"What did she want?"
I closed my eyes.
The memory returned with painful clarity.
A wealthy woman in a cream-colored coat.
A black sedan parked outside our apartment.
My mother crying in the kitchen.
And the words Margaret whispered before leaving.
If they ever discover what happened to Evelyn, none of us will be safe.
I opened my eyes.
"She was frightened."
Dominic leaned forward.
"Of whom?"
I looked toward Vanessa.
She had gone completely still.
"I don't know."
But that wasn't entirely true.
My mother had told me one more thing.
One name.
A name I had spent years trying to forget.
Conrad Vale.
The man who'd worked for Adrian's father.
The man who supposedly died in a car accident seven years ago.
And the man whose threats forced me to disappear.
Adrian studied my face.
"Claire, what aren't you telling me?"
My throat tightened.
"Your mother didn't die the way you think she did."
He stopped breathing.
Evelyn Cross had supposedly died of cancer when Adrian was nineteen.
That was the story everyone knew.
But my mother had spent years insisting something else happened.
And the watch Dominic believed belonged to Margaret Rainer had originally been Evelyn Cross's.
Then Warren Pike returned with another report.
The club's security footage showed Vanessa entering the private office twenty minutes before the watch disappeared.
But she wasn't alone.
A man had accompanied her.
His face was partially hidden.
He wore a black coat.
And a silver ring shaped like a rose.
Adrian stared at the image.
Then whispered:
May you like
"Conrad."
The man who had supposedly died seven years earlier was standing inside the Marlowe Club that very evening.
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