My mother’s watch had never been expensive.
Small silver case. Scratched crystal. Narrow black leather band she replaced every few years. After she died, Camden gave it to me because I had been the one who bought her the replacement strap when I was fourteen.
I wore it through college.
I wore it to my first day at Dennis Industrial.
I wore it when detectives placed me in handcuffs.
“What happened to it after your arrest?” Mara asked.
“County intake took everything.”
“Then?”
“My personal property was released to Camden before sentencing.”
Silas looked toward me from the driver’s seat.
“So the watch should have gone back to your father.”
“Yes.”
“Did you see it when you returned home?”
“No.”
Mara said, “Reagan.”
We all thought the same thing.
The house.
We had already searched Camden’s bedroom badly and emotionally, not systematically.
If the watch remained anywhere, Reagan might know.
But we also knew Carter had been there.
And Vale.
And likely people we had never seen.
Going back was reckless.
Which meant Price probably expected me to avoid it.
“Take me home,” I said.
Silas shook his head. “No.”
“My home.”
“It is not safe.”
“Nothing is safe.”
“That does not mean you select the most obvious death trap.”
Mara watched me.
“You think Reagan has the watch.”
“I think my father would not throw it away.”
“And if Carter already searched the house?”
“Then Reagan may know what he took.”
Silas muttered something about hereditary stubbornness.
We approached Silver Lake from the south.
Mara used a public traffic camera feed to check the street around Camden’s house before we entered town. No marked police vehicles. Carter’s sedan absent. Reagan’s SUV still in the driveway.
That last detail bothered me.
“Why hasn’t she left?”
Mara said, “Maybe she cannot.”
We parked two streets away.
Silas remained in the car while Mara and I crossed neighboring yards.
The back door was unlocked.
Inside, the kitchen looked untouched.
A mug stood beside the sink.
Coffee dried into a brown ring.
“Reagan?”
No answer.
Mara pointed to the floor.
A chair had been overturned near the dining room.
The telephone cord had been ripped from the wall.
We moved carefully.
In the living room, one cushion lay on the floor.
Upstairs, Camden’s bedroom had been searched.
Not casually.
Drawers pulled out.
Mattress shifted.
Closet boxes opened.
“They came back,” Mara whispered.
A sound came from the bathroom.
I opened the door.
Reagan sat on the floor between the bathtub and vanity.
Her wrists were bound with plastic ties.
Dried blood marked her lower lip.
“Finnley.”
I cut her free.
“Who did this?”
She rubbed her wrists.
“Vale.”
“Carter?”
“No.”
“Price?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara handed her water.
Reagan drank too quickly and coughed.
“What were they looking for?” I asked.
She looked at me.
“You know.”
“The watch.”
Her eyes widened just enough.
So yes.
“Where is it?”
She leaned against the vanity.
“Camden hid it.”
“Where?”
“I never knew.”
“Reagan.”
“I’m telling you.”
Mara crouched beside her.
“Then tell us everything else.”
Reagan closed her eyes.
For several seconds she looked older than she had the day I came home.
“I knew Camden was investigating Carter.”
“When?”
“About six months after Finnley went to prison.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Because Camden asked me not to.”
I laughed once.
Everyone had apparently honored my father’s instructions except when they involved saving me.
Reagan looked at me.
“He was afraid.”
“So you all keep saying.”
“He did not sleep. He changed locks. He started checking food packaging before eating.”
“The arsenic.”
Her eyes lowered.
“He thought someone was poisoning him.”
“Were they?”
“Yes.”
The certainty in her voice changed the room.
“You know who?”
“No.”
“But you know it happened.”
“I watched him get sick after meals we shared.”
“Meals you prepared?”
Pain flashed across her face.
“Sometimes.”
Mara asked, “Did you ever become sick?”
“No.”
That left an ugly implication.
Reagan understood it.
“I did not poison him.”
“Then someone had access to his food.”
“Carter did. Vale came by twice. Deliveries arrived. Camden ate at the office.”
“Who else?”
She hesitated.
“Dr. Fenwick.”
I knew the name.
Camden’s physician.
“He came to the house?”
“Three times.”
“Why?”
“He said Camden’s symptoms were anxiety.”
Silas, who had entered quietly behind us, said, “Of course he did.”
Reagan looked startled.
“You.”
“Still alive.”
She stared at him, then at me.
“Finnley, there are things Camden never told you.”
“I’m running out of people who can say that without making me angry.”
Her eyes filled but she did not cry.
“The night he disappeared, he called me from the office.”
I waited.
“He sounded confused. He said someone had broken into the records room.”
“Who?”
“He did not know.”
“When he came home?”
“He could barely walk.”
“Poison?”
“I think so.”
“Then what?”
“I wanted an ambulance. He grabbed my hand and told me no hospital in Silver Lake.”
“Because Vale would know.”
“Yes.”
“So you called Carter.”
“I thought Carter was helping him.”
“You had already seen Camden investigate Carter.”
“I knew they were fighting. I did not know why.”
“That is not believable.”
“It is the truth.”
She looked at Mara.
“Camden kept files in three different places. He stopped telling me where he went. He stopped trusting everyone.”
“Except Carter?”
“He trusted Carter enough to call him when dying.”
“No. You called Carter.”
Reagan looked at me.
“Yes.”
“And Carter brought Gideon Price.”
“I did not know who Price was then.”
“What happened when they arrived?”
Her hands began trembling.
“Carter came first. Price arrived five minutes later.”
“You recognized the scar.”
“Yes.”
“What did Camden do?”
“He tried to stand.”
“What did he say?”
Reagan looked toward the bedroom door as though the memory might enter.
“He said, ‘You were supposed to keep him alive, not destroy him.’”
My stomach tightened.
“To Carter?”
“Yes.”
“What did Carter say?”
“Nothing.”
“And Price?”
She swallowed.
“Price said, ‘Your son is alive. That was the agreement.’”
Silas whispered a curse.
The bargain.
Not a theory.
Not Camden’s interpretation.
An agreement.
“What did my father say?”
“He told Price he had proof.”
“What proof?”
“I don’t know.”
“Evelyn’s ledger?”
“Maybe.”
“The IronKey?”
“I had never seen it.”
“What happened next?”
“Camden collapsed.”
Reagan’s voice became smaller.
“Carter knelt beside him. Price told him not to touch anything.”
“Why?”
“Because Camden was bleeding.”
I thought of Carter’s original Omega watch in Unit 108.
Blood near the clasp.
“Where?”
“His nose. His mouth.”
“Carter touched him anyway.”
“Yes.”
“The watch.”
Reagan looked confused.
“He took Carter’s wrist.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. He held onto him while Carter tried to lift him.”
That explained the blood.
Then somehow Camden acquired the watch later.
Or Carter lost it in the struggle.
“What happened to Camden?”
“They carried him outside.”
“You let them.”
“I thought they were taking him to a private clinic.”
“Did you follow?”
“Price told me if I followed, Finnley would die in prison before morning.”
Silence.
My anger did not disappear.
But it lost its simple shape.
Reagan had been threatened.
Silas had been threatened.
Camden had been threatened.
Carter perhaps too.
Price’s power came from making everyone believe isolation was survival.
“Why did you tell me Camden died?”
Reagan wiped her mouth.
“Because six days later Carter returned.”
“What did he say?”
“That Camden was dead.”
“Did he show you a body?”
“No.”
“A certificate?”
“Yes.”
“Who signed it?”
“Dr. Fenwick.”
Of course.
“Then Carter arranged the memorial.”
“Yes.”
“And told you to maintain the story.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“He said Camden had died protecting me.”
Her voice broke.
“And that if I told you anything, you would become the next problem.”
Mara stood.
“We need the watch.”
Reagan nodded.
“There is one place Camden might have put it.”
We followed her downstairs.
In the garage stood my father’s old workbench.
I had seen it a thousand times.
Pegboard tools.
Metal drawers.
A vise bolted to one corner.
Reagan walked to the wall.
“He came out here at night after your conviction.”
“So?”
“He stopped fixing things.”
That meant something.
Camden never entered the garage without fixing something.
“Did he hide things here?”
“I once saw him remove the faceplate from the old electrical panel.”
Mara looked at the panel.
Not the active one.
An obsolete fuse box remained from before the house renovation.
I unscrewed the cover.
Behind it, taped to the back wall, was a cloth pouch.
My hands shook.
Inside lay Evelyn’s watch.
Exactly as I remembered.
Black leather band.
Scratched crystal.
Stopped at 4:17.
I turned it over.
Nothing unusual.
Mara took it carefully.
“The case back has tool marks.”
Silas handed her a small screwdriver.
She opened the rear plate.
The movement inside looked ordinary.
Then Mara removed a paper-thin metal disc hidden beneath the backing.
Micro-engraving covered one side.
A sequence of sixteen characters.
On the other:
SECOND KEY.
Reagan whispered, “Camden found it.”
I looked at the stopped hands.
4:17.
“Was it always stopped?”
“No,” Reagan said.
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara examined the crown.
“It is not broken.”
She wound it.
The second hand started moving.
“Then somebody deliberately stopped it at 4:17.”
Silas said, “Time as a code?”
I remembered the Northland identifier.
NL/4179/B.
417.
The connection was too precise.
“Maybe not a time.”
Mara looked at the micro-engraving.
“Could be part of a retrieval sequence.”
My phone rang.
Carter.
Everyone froze.
I answered.
“You found Reagan.”
Not a question.
“How do you know?”
“Because Vale called Price.”
“Where are you?”
“Trying to stay alive.”
“Welcome to the club.”
“Finnley, listen carefully. Vale is no longer pretending he works for anyone but Price.”
“Were you?”
Silence.
“Carter.”
“I worked for Price because Camden and I made a choice.”
“You testified against me.”
“Yes.”
“You knew I was innocent.”
“Yes.”
The directness hurt more than excuses.
“Why?”
“Because two days before your arrest, Price showed us photographs of you entering your apartment, leaving work, buying coffee, driving to Mara’s building.”
Mara stiffened.
“He said if the theft case collapsed, you would die in what looked like a robbery.”
“So you framed me.”
“I helped maintain the frame.”
“That distinction matters to you?”
“No.”
For once, his voice held no defense.
I looked at Evelyn’s watch.
“Did you know about my mother’s account?”
“No.”
“Ledger?”
“No.”
“Watch?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
Everyone looked at me.
“How?”
“Camden asked me about it before he disappeared.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Evelyn hid something in plain sight.”
“Why didn’t you take it?”
“I never knew where it was.”
“Vale just searched the house for it.”
“Then you have minutes, not hours.”
“Where’s Camden?”
Carter exhaled.
“I found the building.”
My heart slammed once.
“Where?”
“Old Fenwick Pharmaceuticals plant.”
Silas stared at me.
Dr. Fenwick.
The doctor.
“Address.”
“I’m not giving it over the phone.”
“Then send it.”
“I need something first.”
Of course.
“What?”
“The ledger.”
“No.”
“Not for Price.”
“Everyone says that before they ask me for evidence.”
“Finnley, the ledger has a page Evelyn wrote about me.”
I looked down.
“I saw your initials.”
“You didn’t see everything.”
“What am I missing?”
“She documented the night she died.”
Nobody moved.
I opened the ledger.
“Page?”
“Near the back. Look for a torn seam.”
I searched.
Three pages from the end, the binding looked thicker.
Mara took the notebook.
“There are two pages stuck together.”
She separated them carefully.
Writing appeared inside.
A hidden sheet.
Evelyn’s hand.
October 14.
Carter came tonight.
He says Price knows about Northland.
He offered to get Finnley away.
I read faster.
Carter believes we have 48 hours.
Camden still does not understand how deep Wren reaches.
If I cannot leave, Carter is to protect Finnley.
Then:
4:17 a.m. If anything happens, Carter did not betray me.
I looked at the watch.
Stopped at 4:17.
Carter’s voice came through the phone.
“Now you understand why I need that page.”
“No,” I said. “I understand my mother trusted you.”
“She should not have.”
“What happened at 4:17?”
Silence.
“Carter.”
He spoke so quietly I almost missed it.
“At 4:17 in the morning, your mother called me from Lake Arlen.”
My grip tightened.
“She was alive after everyone thought she was home.”
“What was she doing there?”
“Trying to hide the physical key.”
“What key?”
“The one that pairs with your watch.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said you spoke to her.”
“She would not tell me.”
“Why?”
“Because she no longer trusted anyone completely.”
I heard movement on his end.
Then Carter said quickly, “Price’s people are moving Camden tonight.”
“Where?”
“The Fenwick plant.”
“When?”
“Before dawn.”
“Why?”
“Because they think you found the watch.”
“How would they know?”
Carter did not answer.
Then I realized.
Reagan’s house.
Search.
Vale.
Maybe surveillance.
Maybe us.
I looked toward the garage window.
Across the street, a dark sedan had stopped.
No lights.
Mara saw it too.
“We have company.”
Carter said, “Finnley, get out.”
The sedan doors opened.
Vale stepped out.
Two other men followed.
And in Vale’s hand was not a gun.
It was a gasoline can.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Vale Set My Father’s House on Fire, but the Clue He Tried to Destroy Led Us Back to Lake Arlen
I Came Home Carrying Three Years of Anger, but the Man I Needed to Confront Had Already Been Buried
Part 6 of 18
