Not like a battery compartment. Not like normal.
“This isn’t standard,” Frank said. “Someone modified it. Hidden compartment.”
Frank carefully unfolded the tiny piece of paper hidden beneath the metal plate.
Even before he handed it to me, I recognized the handwriting.
Dad’s blocky capital letters. The way he pressed too hard with pens, leaving grooves in the paper like he was carving words instead of writing them.
Mia — if you find this, it means something happened to me before I could explain everything. Trust your instincts. Go to First National Bank. Safe deposit box 447. You’ll understand.
My knees nearly gave out.
“What is this?” I whispered.
Frank shook his head slowly. “No idea. But I figured if somebody stole this watch, they probably didn’t know about the compartment.”
My mind immediately jumped to Tyler.
Twenty-four years old. Perpetually unemployed unless you counted “networking” and “crypto consulting” as jobs. Always talking about startup investors while borrowing gas money from my mother. The kind of guy who treated responsibility like it was contagious.
And Richard—my mother’s husband—always defended him.
“He’s ambitious.”
“He’s finding himself.”
“You’re too hard on him, Mia.”
Meanwhile I worked sixty-hour weeks while Tyler somehow always had the newest phone, designer sneakers, and enough money to spend every weekend downtown with friends.
The pieces slammed together so fast it made me nauseous.
“He took it,” I said aloud.
Frank crossed his thick arms. “The seller’s ID said Tyler Grayson.”
Of course it did.
A strange calm settled over me then. Not peace. Not forgiveness.
Something colder.
I thanked Frank, took the watch with trembling hands, and drove straight home.
The entire drive, my father’s note sat on the passenger seat beside me like a loaded weapon.
By the time I pulled into the driveway, every memory I’d ignored over the past two years started rearranging itself into something uglier.
Tyler asking weird questions about Dad’s belongings.
Richard casually suggesting I should “keep valuables at home instead of work.”
Mom insisting family should “share burdens.”
I walked inside without knocking.
The smell of garlic and onions filled the kitchen. Mom was cooking dinner while Richard sat at the island scrolling through his phone. Tyler lounged on the couch with his sneakers on the coffee table like he paid for the house himself.
Three faces turned toward me.
And immediately froze.
Because they saw the watch in my hand.
