Her face flushed with a sudden, vicious rage. She slammed her hand down on the desk. “If you walk out that door without signing this, I will destroy whatever miserable life you’ve managed to scrape together. I will make sure you don't even get to keep his last name.”
I turned my back on her and grabbed the brass doorknob. As I twisted it, my thumb brushed over the cracked face of the pocket watch in my pocket. The hands stuck at 4:02. The backdated document. The missing red ledger.
Something massive was wrong, and I had just made myself the only obstacle in Vanessa’s way.
The drive back to my apartment in the city was a blur of rain and glaring taillights. The wipers dragged heavily across the windshield, scraping away the relentless downpour, but they did nothing to clear the fog in my head. I could still hear the echo of Vanessa’s hand slamming against the mahogany desk. I could still see the absolute panic disguised as rage in her eyes.
When I finally unlocked the door to my cramped two-bedroom apartment, the silence felt heavy. I threw my wet coat over a chair, bypassed the kitchen, and sat down at the small dining table I used as a drafting desk.
I pulled the brass pocket watch out of my suit and set it down under the glow of a desk lamp.
I hadn’t seen this watch in almost fifteen years. My father had bought it at an antique auction when I was a teenager. He used to keep it on his desk as a paperweight. When I left for college, a week after he married Vanessa, he had tried to give it to me as a peace offering. I had been so angry about the marriage that I left it sitting on the kitchen counter and walked out.
Why would he mail it to me now, seemingly broken, three days before his heart gave out?
I picked it up and ran my thumb over the rusted hands. 4:02. I pressed the top latch, trying to open the back casing. It was jammed tight. I went to the kitchen, grabbed a small flathead screwdriver from a utility drawer, and sat back down. I carefully wedged the metal tip into the hairline seam of the brass casing and twisted.
With a sharp click, the back of the watch popped open.
A small, folded piece of wax paper fell out onto the table.
My pulse picked up as I carefully unfolded it. It wasn’t a letter. It was a small, tightly cut square of paper with a series of numbers and letters hastily written in my father’s unmistakable architectural block handwriting.
F.N.B. 402.
The storm clears at the foundation.
I stared at the words. First National Bank. Box 402. The rusted hands on the watch weren't just broken; he had deliberately set them to match the box number.
Before I could process the discovery, my cell phone vibrated violently against the wood of the table. The caller ID displayed an unfamiliar Chicago number. I let it ring three times before swiping the screen.
“Julian Hayes?” a deep, gravelly voice asked.
“Speaking.”
“My name is Richard Vance. I represent the Hayes Estate and, by extension, your stepmother, Vanessa Hayes.”
The lawyer’s tone was strictly business, heavily layered with condescension. “I understand you had a somewhat emotional reaction in your father’s study this evening and declined to sign the waiver.”
“There was nothing emotional about it,” I replied, staring at the wax paper. “I’m waiting for the official legal reading next week.”
“There won’t be a reading for you, Mr. Hayes. I am calling as a courtesy. Vanessa is prepared to extend her offer of fifty thousand dollars for another twenty-four hours. If you refuse, my office will be filing a civil suit against you on Monday morning for embezzlement.”
I gripped the phone tighter. “Embezzlement? What are you talking about?”
“We have banking records indicating that over the past two years, significant funds were drained from an educational trust set up in your name. Since you are the sole beneficiary, and Vanessa is the executor of the estate, she is legally obligated to recover those stolen funds. The lawsuit will be public. It will likely cost you your job at the architectural firm, and you will spend years defending yourself. Sign the waiver, and the investigation disappears.”
My chest tightened. An educational trust? I hadn’t received a dime from my father since I was eighteen. If money was being drained in my name, someone else was forging the withdrawals.