PART 13 — RAYMOND’S WATCH

For a moment, I couldn’t make sense of Mark’s words.

“Collected from my address?”

“Yes.”

Thomas held out his hand for the phone.

“Mark, send us a photograph of that receipt if you took one.”

“I did.”

A few seconds later, Thomas’s phone buzzed.

He opened the image.

North County Storage.

Unit 214.

Rental date: August third.

Then I saw the inventory.

Two chairs.

One cedar chest.

Twelve boxes.

Kitchenware.

Framed photographs.

My chest tightened.

“Cedar chest.”

Thomas looked at me.

“What?”

I was already walking toward the hallway.

The cedar chest had belonged to Raymond’s mother.

For years it sat beneath the basement stairs.

I hadn’t opened it since Raymond died.

I went downstairs.

Thomas followed.

The space beneath the stairs was empty.

I stared at the rectangle of clean concrete where the chest had been.

“How did I not notice?”

“Because you weren’t looking for something you had no reason to believe was missing.”

That helped.

A little.

Then I remembered the boxes.

I crossed to the storage shelves.

Christmas decorations.

Old tax records.

Raymond’s fishing gear.

Several spaces looked wrong.

Not obviously empty.

Just rearranged.

Someone had taken things carefully enough that I wouldn’t immediately notice.

I opened one plastic container.

Then another.

And suddenly I knew what I needed to check.

“Upstairs.”

I moved faster than Thomas probably liked.

Straight to my bedroom.

Top dresser drawer.

Socks.

Handkerchiefs.

A small wooden box.

I opened it.

Empty.

My knees weakened.

Thomas caught my elbow.

“Dorothy?”

“Raymond’s watch.”

“What watch?”

“The one his father gave him when he turned twenty-one.”

Raymond wore it on our wedding day.

Mark’s graduation.

Our fortieth anniversary.

The night before Raymond died, he took it off and placed it in my hand.

Give it to Mark when you’re ready, Dot.

I hadn’t been ready.

Now it was gone.

I called my son.

He answered immediately.

“Mom?”

“Did Alicia ever give you your father’s watch?”

Silence.

“No.”

“Did she ever mention it?”

“No. Why?”

I closed my eyes.

“It’s missing.”

Mark stopped breathing for a second.

“That watch?”

“Yes.”

“I would never—”

“I know.”

And I did.

Whatever else my son had done, he wouldn’t have taken Raymond’s watch without asking.

Thomas touched my shoulder.

“We need to see that storage unit.”

Mark heard him.

“I’ll meet you there.”

“No,” Thomas said. “Not yet.”

“Why?”

“Because Alicia rented it. We don’t walk into someone else’s unit without permission.”

I hated that answer.

Which probably meant it was the right one.

Thomas looked again at the receipt.

Then frowned.

“Dorothy, there’s a phone number for the facility.”

I called.

A woman answered.

I explained that property belonging to me might have been placed in one of their units.

She was polite but firm.

She couldn’t give me access.

Then I asked one more question.

“Can you at least tell me whether Unit 214 is still active?”

A pause.

“Yes, ma’am.”

My heart lifted slightly.

Then she added:

“But it’s scheduled to be emptied today.”

I looked at Thomas.

“What time?”

Another pause.

“According to the account notes, the renter requested access for a moving company at two.”

I checked the clock.

12:47.

A little more than an hour.

Thomas was already putting on his coat.

“Call Mark.”

I did.

He answered.

“Get in your car,” I said.

“Where are we going?”

“North County Storage.”

Thomas opened my front door.

Outside, Eleanor stood on her porch watching us.

I remembered her phone camera.

Then another thought struck me.

If Alicia had been removing things from my house for three months, maybe Eleanor had seen more than she realized.

“Thomas, wait.”

I crossed the lawn.

Eleanor came down her steps.

“Everything all right?”

“No.”

I showed her the storage receipt.

Her expression changed.

Then she looked toward my house.

“Dorothy…”

“What?”

“I thought you knew.”

Those four words made my stomach drop.

“Knew what?”

Eleanor hesitated.

“About the moving van.”

Thomas stopped behind me.

“What moving van?”

Eleanor pointed toward my driveway.

“The one that came while you were visiting Ruth.”

October eighth.

The day my signature supposedly appeared on those documents.

The day I was three hundred miles away.

Eleanor looked from Thomas to me.

“There were three people loading things from your house.”

“Who?”

“One was Alicia.”

I already expected that.

“Another was Bruce.”

Expected that too.

“And the third?”

Eleanor’s face tightened.

“A woman.”

“What woman?”

“I’d never seen her before.”

Then Eleanor said something that made Thomas pull out his legal pad again.

“But her car had a Silver Meadows parking sticker.”

And suddenly the storage unit wasn’t separate from the rest of the plan.

It was part of it.