Chapter 3 - The Silver Pocket Watch
My estate in the foothills outside Denver was a sprawling, stone-and-timber home surrounded by quiet pine forests—a place built for peace, though it had been mostly empty since I threw myself into building my corporate empire ten years ago.
By midnight, my housekeeper, Mrs. Gable, had prepared the guest suite on the second floor. She had brought up hot chicken noodle soup, warm milk, and fresh velvet blankets.
After bathing and putting on soft, oversized pajamas David had rushed to buy from a late-night department store, Avery and Mason sat on the edge of the large queen bed. They looked small against the mountain of fluffy pillows, but for the first time since I met them at Gate C9, the terrifying tension in their posture had begun to thaw.
"Is this your castle?" Mason asked, holding his velvet rabbit close as he looked around the high wood-beamed ceiling.
"It's just my home, buddy," I smiled, sitting on a wooden chair beside the bed. "And for as long as you need it, it's your home too."
Avery was holding her warm mug of milk with both hands. "Julian?"
"Yes, Avery?"
"Are you going to send us away when the snow comes back?"
Her question pierced my heart. I reached out, gently smoothing back a stray lock of silver-blonde hair from her forehead. "Never. I gave you my word, Avery. You and Mason are safe here."
She nodded quietly, taking a small sip of milk.
Downstairs, the front doorbell chimed softly.
"Get some rest, kids," I said, standing up and tucking the thick duvet around their shoulders. "Mrs. Gable is right down the hall if you need anything."
I walked down the grand staircase to find David standing in the foyer alongside Detective Marcus Vance of the Denver Police Department Special Victims Unit and Sarah Jenkins, a senior caseworker from Child Protective Services.
"Julian," David said, stepping forward. "Detective Vance just finished the preliminary interrogation of Olivia Vance at the precinct."
"What did she say?" I asked, gesturing for them to follow me into my home office. I poured three glasses of water and sat behind my desk.
Detective Vance, a tired-looking man with graying hair and sharp, intelligent eyes, sat down and opened a thick manila folder.
"Olivia Vance isn't their mother, as the kids correctly stated," Vance began. "The children's biological parents were Thomas and Clara Vance. Thomas was Olivia's older brother."
"So Olivia is their biological aunt?" I asked, frowning.
"Correct," Vance nodded. "Clara Vance passed away three years ago from illness. Thomas raised the twins alone in a small town near Boulder. He ran a modest woodworking shop. Six months ago, Thomas was diagnosed with aggressive brain cancer. He passed away nine weeks ago."
I rubbed my temples, feeling a heavy wave of sadness for the two children sleeping upstairs. "And Olivia took custody?"
"She named herself temporary guardian after Thomas died," Vance explained, his voice turning cold. "She moved into Thomas's home, liquidated his personal assets, sold his truck, and put the house up for foreclosure. She claimed Thomas left no money, no insurance, and no estate, and that she was forced to care for the kids out of charity."
"Except she didn't want the charity anymore," Sarah Jenkins added bitterly. "She booked a one-way ticket to New York, intending to start a new life with the proceeds from selling Thomas's belongings, leaving the twins abandoned at the airport where she assumed airport security would turn them over to state foster care."
"She's a monster," David muttered from the corner of the room.
"It gets worse, Mr. Sterling," Detective Vance said, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. "We searched Olivia's impounded luggage at JFK. In her handbag, we found Thomas Vance's original personal documents, including his death certificate, bank statements, and a sealed safety deposit box key from Boulder National Bank."
"Did Thomas really die broke?" I asked, my corporate instincts detecting something foul beneath the surface.
"That's the strange part," Vance replied. "According to Thomas's tax filings, he barely made fifty thousand dollars a year with his woodworking shop. Yet two weeks before he died, he deposited twenty-five thousand dollars in cash into a private account. And he paid three years of fees upfront for that safety deposit box."
I leaned back in my leather chair, contemplating the detective's words. A small-town woodworker barely making ends meet doesn't suddenly generate twenty-five thousand dollars in cash on his deathbed while paying years in advance to lock something away in a bank vault.
"Did Olivia have the key to that box?" I asked.
"She had the key," Vance nodded, "but Boulder National Bank requires dual verification—either the owner's biometric print or a specific physical item designated in the bank agreement. Olivia couldn't open it without that item, which is likely why she hadn't emptied it yet."
At that moment, the office door clicked open softly.
We all turned.
Standing in the doorway, barefoot in his blue pajamas, was little Mason. He was rubbing his sleepy gray eyes with one fist while clutching his faded velvet rabbit in the other.
"Mason?" I said softly, standing up and walking over to him. "What's wrong, buddy? Did you have a bad dream?"
"No," Mason whispered, holding his rabbit out toward me. "Barnaby's tum-tum hurts."
I blinked, looking at the worn stuffed animal. "Barnaby's tummy hurts?"
"He has a hard toy inside," Mason explained innocently. "Daddy put it in Barnaby's belly before he went to the hospital. He said I had to keep Barnaby safe and never let anyone take him."
Detective Vance stand up slowly, his eyes locking onto the stuffed rabbit.
I gently took the plush toy from Mason's small hands. Feeling around the plush cotton belly of the rabbit, my fingers brushed against a firm, heavy rectangular shape hidden deep within the foam stuffing behind an old seam that had been carefully hand-stitched shut with dark thread.
"David," I said quietly. "Bring me a pair of scissors."
David pulled a pair of small scissors from my desk drawer and handed them to me. With meticulous care, I snipped the three small stitches along the rabbit's back seam and reached inside.
My fingers pulled out a small, heavy object wrapped in oilskin cloth.
I unrolled the cloth on my desk.
Inside lay an exquisite, antique silver pocket watch. The outer casing was intricately carved with intricate family crests and delicate floral patterns. But what caught my attention wasn't the silver—it was the deep, striking engraving on the back casing.
To my beloved son, Arthur Vance. Property of the Vance Family Estate - 1892.
Below the watch lay a folded piece of heavy parchment paper, yellowed with age, and a small, heavy brass key bearing a registration serial number that matched the Boulder National Bank vault.
Detective Vance stepped up to the desk, staring at the antique watch in utter disbelief.
"My God," Vance gasped softly. "That's not just an old watch."
I picked up the folded parchment paper and opened it. It was a handwritten letter from Thomas Vance, dated three days before his death.
To whoever finds this letter:
My name is Thomas Vance. If you are reading this, I am dead, and my sister Olivia has likely tried to destroy my family. I am not who Olivia thinks I am. My grandfather was Arthur Vance, the sole heir to the Vance Manufacturing fortune in Pennsylvania. Sixty years ago, my father walked away from that fortune after a family feud, changing his life to live simply.
I never cared about the money—until I learned I was dying, and my children would be left alone.
The safety deposit box in Boulder contains the original land deeds, stock certificates, and trust documents establishing Avery and Mason Vance as the sole surviving legal heirs to the Vance Family Trust, currently valued at over seventy million dollars.
Olivia found out about the trust three weeks ago. She is trying to eliminate the twins so she can claim the inheritance as the next of kin.
Please... protect my children.
May you like
I looked up from the paper, my blood running colder than the mountain wind outside.
Olivia hadn't just abandoned two children because they were a financial burden. She had abandoned them at an international airport so they would vanish into an anonymous state foster care system—or die forgotten—while she moved to New York to claim a seventy-million-dollar fortune that belonged to the two little orphans sleeping upstairs.
