Chapter 2 - The Watch With the Scratch
Police separated everyone.
Lily was freed first.
Paramedics found no serious physical injury. The orange dart was a harmless suction toy, but the terror had been real, and investigators treated the restraint and intimidation seriously.
Claire was taken into custody for questioning.
Eleanor was questioned separately.
Ethan stayed with Lily until she finally stopped trembling.
Then Detective Maya Torres arrived.
Her first question was simple.
“Where did you get your watch?”
Ethan removed it.
A Bennett & Rowe Heritage No. 8.
Expensive, but not unique.
Thousands had been manufactured.
The scratch was different.
Ethan remembered exactly when he made it—three years earlier, catching the bezel against the steel edge of his father’s old desk.
If the video showed an identical scratch, coincidence became difficult.
Maya photographed it.
“Did you give anyone another watch?”
“No.”
“Lose it recently?”
“No.”
“Have it repaired?”
“Last year.”
“Where?”
Bennett House Services.
A private maintenance and concierge company partly owned by Ethan’s family holding group.
That immediately widened the circle.
Meanwhile Claire admitted tying Lily.
She did not deny it.
But she insisted someone had ordered her.
“Who?”
“I never saw his face.”
“You accepted rope from a faceless man and tied up a child?”
Claire looked down.
“He told me Eleanor wanted it done.”
Eleanor nearly exploded when told.
Claire continued.
The man said it was a staged family intervention.
The ropes were supposed to remain loose. The toy gun was supposedly part of a video designed to frighten Ethan into taking a security threat seriously.
“Did you believe that?”
“At first.”
“And when Lily started screaming?”
Claire said nothing.
That silence destroyed whatever defense she hoped to build.
Whatever Claire believed at the beginning, she continued after Lily became terrified.
Her responsibility remained hers.
Then Eleanor admitted another piece.
She had known something was going to happen.
That was why she was recording before Claire tied Lily.
Ethan stared at her.
“You knew?”
“I knew someone was coming.”
“And you left Lily in the room?”
“I thought I could prove who was threatening us.”
“You used my daughter as bait?”
“No.”
“That’s exactly what you did.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled.
“I didn’t know they would touch her.”
Ethan turned away.
Maya asked what threat Eleanor meant.
For six weeks, Eleanor had been receiving anonymous envelopes.
No demands for money.
No direct threats.
Only photographs.
Ethan entering his office.
Lily leaving school with Ethan.
Claire at a restaurant.
And one old photograph of Ethan’s late father, Jonathan Bennett.
On the back:
ASK ETHAN WHO WORE THE SECOND WATCH.
Ethan froze.
“What second watch?”
Eleanor looked at him.
“You really don’t know?”
“No.”
She retrieved an envelope from her handbag.
Inside was a photograph from 2004.
Jonathan Bennett stood at a charity gala.
Beside him was a younger Ethan.
Both wore different watches.
But behind them stood another man.
His face had been cut away from the photograph.
On his wrist:
Bennett & Rowe Heritage No. 8.
Ethan looked at his own.
Then Maya turned the photograph over.
Written in Jonathan’s handwriting:
ONE FOR ETHAN.
ONE FOR THE MAN WHO SAVED HIM.
May you like
Ethan whispered:
“Saved me from what?”
