Chapter 10 - What Rose Had Kept
Rose was moved to a private recovery room under a false name. When I visited, she looked stronger, though the bruises on her face had turned dark purple.
I showed her Matthew's drawing.
She began to cry.
"Nicholas made that for him," she said. "He promised Matthew he would come back when it was safe."
"Why did you keep all this from me?"
Rose looked ashamed. "Because I knew what your father was capable of when he wanted to protect the family name. And because I believed Camila had people watching me."
She told me how she had met Nicholas. Seven years earlier, she worked nights in the dispatch office at Vance Logistics. She had been studying bookkeeping and taking every overtime shift she could get. Nicholas often came in after midnight, carrying takeout and a stack of reports. He was kind to the drivers and rude to executives who treated them badly. He brought Rose dinner when the office ran late, learned her mother's name, remembered her exams, and never treated her like someone who was invisible.
They fell in love quietly. When she became pregnant, Nicholas was thrilled. He planned to leave the company and build a smaller business with her.
Then he found the fake contracts.
"He said your father had trusted Richard Sloane with too much," Rose whispered. "Camila knew about the money. She told Nicholas she could make it disappear if he gave her the files. He refused."
"And the night of the explosion?"
"He told me he was going to meet someone who could help him. He never came home."
Rose reached beneath her blanket and pulled out a tiny silver pendant.
Inside was a photograph of Nicholas holding baby Matthew.
"He gave this to me the night before he vanished," she said. "He told me that if anyone ever came asking, I should trust the man who still wore their mother's watch."
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I looked down at my wrist.
My mother's watch was still there.
