Chapter 3 - The Clock Stopped at 8:17At 7:42 the following morning, someone began pounding on the front door.
I had slept for less than two hours on the living room sofa, wrapped in a blanket that smelled of mildew. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my father's message.
When the pounding came again, I grabbed my phone and looked through the curtains.
Richard stood on the porch in a dark overcoat.
Vivian was beside him, holding a leather handbag. Celeste stood behind them, her arms crossed tightly over her chest.
My father looked directly at the window.
“Evelyn! Open the door.”
I considered pretending I wasn't there.
Then I remembered what he had written.
Do not force me to protect this family from you.
I opened the door but kept the security chain fastened.
“What do you want?”
Richard's eyes moved past me into the hallway.
“Where is the box?”
His question answered several questions I had spent the night asking myself.
“You knew there was a box?”
His expression flickered.
“I heard the police discovered something.”
“You told me to stay away from whatever they found before I told you what it was.”
“Don't play games with me.”
“Then stop giving me reasons to think you're lying.”
For a moment, the man who had raised me looked like a stranger.
His jaw tightened.
“Your grandmother was mentally unstable toward the end. She became convinced that people were stealing from her. She hid money, documents, God knows what else. Whatever she left in that house could be dangerous.”
“Dangerous to whom?”
“To everyone.”
Vivian stepped forward.
“Evelyn, darling, your father is worried. We know you've been under a lot of pressure since the funeral.”
“I was under pressure when you all inherited millions and I got a collapsing house, too. Nobody seemed worried about me then.”
Celeste lowered her eyes.
Richard ignored the remark.
“The police have no business keeping family property from us.”
“It's my property.”
“The contents may belong to the estate.”
“The box had my initials carved into it. The letter was addressed to me.”
My father went completely still.
It lasted less than a second, but I noticed.
“What letter?”
I felt something inside me settle into place.
“You tell me.”
He looked toward Vivian.
She barely shook her head, but the gesture was enough to make me suspicious.
Then Richard smiled.
It was the same smile he had worn in the lawyer's office.
“Listen carefully. You have no idea what you're dealing with. That house has been part of our family for generations. There are documents you don't understand and matters that should remain private.”
“Did you know the box was there?”
“No.”
“Did you know about the firearm?”
His face lost its color.
Only briefly.
Then he stepped closer to the door.
“Where is it?”
I shut the door.
He struck it with his palm.
“Evelyn!”
I called Detective Quinn.
She arrived twenty minutes later with another officer. By then, my father had moved his car to the road and was speaking furiously into his phone.
Quinn listened while I explained what had happened.
“You shouldn't have confronted him alone,” she said.
“I wanted to see his reaction.”
“And?”
“He looked frightened when I mentioned the gun.”
The detective nodded slowly.
“That is useful. But don't assume fear proves guilt.”
We entered the front room together.
The grandfather clock stood in the corner, its dark oak casing scarred by time. The brass pendulum hung motionless behind the glass.
I had seen that clock hundreds of times during childhood visits. My grandfather used to wind it every Sunday before lunch.
It had stopped years before his death.
I approached it and examined the face.
The hands pointed to 8:17.
Exactly as they had for as long as I could remember.
Quinn crouched near the base.
“Has anyone repaired this?”
“Not that I know of.”
She examined the back panel. One screw looked newer than the others.
With a flashlight, she inspected the narrow gap along the side.
“There’s something inside.”
She removed the loose panel.
Behind the clock mechanism, taped to the inner wood, was a small plastic memory card and a folded photograph.
The photograph showed my grandfather standing beside Martin Vale outside the storage facility. Both men were smiling, but someone had drawn a red circle around a third person in the background.
Richard.
Much younger, perhaps twenty-eight, wearing the same expensive watch he had later given me for my eighteenth birthday.
On the back, my grandmother had written:
8:17. The last time Arthur was seen alive.
Quinn's face sharpened.
“Evelyn, do you know who took this photograph?”
“No.”
“Does your father?”
I studied the image.
Richard stood near the warehouse entrance, looking toward the camera.
Beneath the photograph, a second line had been written in tiny letters.
He said he left at seven.
For the first time, I began to understand why my grandmother had hidden the box.
It wasn't just evidence of a crime.
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It was evidence that someone had lied about the last hours of my grandfather's life.
And my father had been at the scene.
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