Chapter 2 - The Watch
Roman slept badly.
By six in the morning, he had already read Peter Shaw’s name twenty-three times.
There was almost nothing useful.
No criminal record.
No flashy business history.
No newspaper photographs.
No obvious connection to the Falcones.
A Peter Andrew Shaw, sixty-three, lived in Bayside.
Former high school history teacher.
Widowed.
Retired.
That was it.
Roman hated ordinary answers when the question was not ordinary.
At seven, Mia wandered into the kitchen wearing pajamas covered in yellow moons.
Roman was already there.
She stopped.
“You’re home.”
Roman looked up.
“I live here.”
“You’re not usually here when I wake up.”
The sentence was casual.
Roman felt it anyway.
“I had some work to do.”
Mia climbed onto a chair.
“Is Peter in trouble?”
Roman poured her cereal.
“Why would Peter be in trouble?”
“You made your eyebrows scary yesterday.”
“My eyebrows aren’t scary.”
“They are when you do the line.”
“What line?”
Mia pressed her eyebrows down dramatically.
Roman stared.
She looked furious.
He laughed.
Mia laughed too.
For a few seconds, the mystery disappeared.
Then Roman placed the old photograph on the table.
Mia leaned forward.
“That’s Peter.”
Roman’s smile vanished.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah.”
The photograph had been taken nearly thirty years earlier.
Peter looked completely different.
Dark hair instead of gray.
No wrinkles.
Thinner.
Mia still recognized him.
“How?”
She shrugged.
“His smile.”
Roman studied the photograph again.
“What did he tell you about Grandpa?”
Mia ate a spoonful of cereal.
“He said he used to sing bad.”
Roman looked up sharply.
“What songs?”
“I don’t know. Old people songs.”
“That narrows it down.”
Mia smiled.
“He said Grandpa thought he could sing Sinatra.”
Roman froze.
Vincent worshiped Frank Sinatra.
He also possessed absolutely no musical ability.
Roman remembered being nine years old and begging him to stop singing “My Way” during a family barbecue.
Nobody outside that old circle would know.
“Anything else?”
Mia shook her head.
Then she added, “Peter said Grandpa worried too much.”
Roman nearly laughed.
“That sounds like something Peter made up.”
“He said you do too.”
Roman put down his coffee.
“Did he?”
“Yeah.”
Mia took another bite.
“He said it’s a Falcone thing.”
Roman did not like Peter Shaw.
He had not met the man yet, but he had reached that conclusion.
At eight-thirty, Roman called Rebecca.
Mia’s nanny answered immediately.
“Morning.”
“Morning. I need to ask you something.”
There was tension in her voice almost instantly.
“Okay.”
“At Cal’s Diner. There’s an older man Mia talks to.”
Silence.
Then Rebecca sighed.
“Peter.”
Roman leaned back in his chair.
“So you know him.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Maybe two months?”
Roman closed his eyes.
“Two months.”
“He’s harmless, Roman.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I sit there.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He’s never been alone with her. Not once. He sits at the same booth near the window every Thursday. Mia started talking to him because she drew his coffee cup.”
Roman rubbed his forehead.
“You let my daughter talk to a stranger for two months without mentioning it.”
“He wasn’t a stranger after the first few times.”
“That is not how strangers work.”
Rebecca’s voice hardened.
“I’m with her every second.”
Roman said nothing.
She continued.
“He’s kind to her. He asks about school. She asks him why old people read newspapers when phones exist. That’s basically their relationship.”
“He talked to her about my father.”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t think that mattered?”
“I didn’t know your father was off-limits.”
Roman looked toward the hallway.
Mia was singing to herself upstairs.
“He knew who she was.”
“Yes.”
“From the beginning?”
“I don’t know.”
Roman stood.
“Thursday. What time do you usually go?”
“Four fifteen.”
“Not today.”
“It’s Thursday.”
“I know.”
“Roman—”
“I’ll take her.”
Cal’s Diner had looked more impressive in Roman’s imagination.
In reality, it was narrow, bright and slightly worn, with red vinyl booths and a coffee machine that sounded like industrial equipment.
Mia entered holding Roman’s hand.
She immediately brightened.
“Peter!”
Roman saw him.
Table seven.
Window seat.
Brown jacket.
Blue shirt.
Silver watch.
Peter Shaw looked up from a newspaper.
For the smallest fraction of a second, surprise crossed his face.
Then he folded the paper calmly.
Mia pulled free of Roman’s hand.
“Hi!”
Peter smiled.
“Well, there she is.”
Roman followed.
Peter looked at him.
“You must be Roman.”
The familiarity irritated him immediately.
“And you must be Peter.”
“Apparently.”
Mia climbed into the booth.
Roman remained standing.
Peter glanced at the empty seat.
“You planning to interrogate me from up there?”
Roman sat.
Mia looked between them.
“You both have scary eyebrows.”
Peter chuckled.
Roman did not.
A waitress approached.
“The usual, Mia?”
Mia nodded.
Roman looked at her.
“What’s the usual?”
“Pancakes.”
“What kind?”
Mia stared at him.
“Mine.”
Peter looked down at his coffee.
Roman noticed.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You looked like you wanted to say something.”
Peter lifted both hands.
“I’ve been alive long enough to know when silence is healthier.”
The waitress took Roman’s coffee order and left.
Roman leaned forward.
“How did you know my father?”
Mia looked up.
Peter’s expression changed.
Not fear.
Something quieter.
“Long time ago.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the beginning of one.”
Roman’s jaw tightened.
Peter looked at Mia.
“Why don’t you finish that horse drawing while your dad and I talk?”
“It’s not a horse.”
“My mistake.”
“It’s a dog.”
Peter examined the drawing.
“Right. Obviously.”
Mia narrowed her eyes.
Roman almost smiled.
Almost.
Peter turned back to him.
“Vincent and I were friends.”
“How close?”
“Close enough that your father once slept on my couch for three weeks because your grandmother threw him out.”
Roman blinked.
“My grandfather owned six houses.”
“Your father was stubborn.”
“That I believe.”
Peter took a sip of coffee.
Roman watched the scratched watch move with his wrist.
“Why are you talking to my daughter?”
Peter set down the cup.
“Because she talked to me.”
“You knew who she was.”
“Eventually.”
“When?”
“Second or third Thursday.”
“How?”
“Her last name. Her face.”
Peter studied Roman.
“She looks like your mother around the eyes.”
Roman disliked how easily the man said it.
“You should have told me.”
Peter gave a humorless smile.
“I suspected that meeting you uninvited would go poorly.”
“So instead you talked to my six-year-old daughter.”
“In a crowded diner while her nanny sat six feet away.”
“That distinction matters to you?”
“It should matter to you.”
Roman leaned closer.
“Don’t tell me what should matter to me.”
Mia looked up.
Peter immediately lowered his voice.
“Fair.”
The pancakes arrived.
Three small ones.
Strawberries on the side.
No syrup.
Roman stared.
Mia reached for a strawberry.
“You don’t want syrup?”
She shook her head.
“You always eat pancakes with syrup at home.”
“Those are different.”
“How?”
“These are diner pancakes.”
Roman opened his mouth.
Then closed it.
Peter noticed.
Roman hated that too.
“Why did you tell her stories about my father?”
“Because she asked.”
“How did the subject come up?”
Mia answered.
“I asked if he had kids.”
Roman looked at her.
Mia continued eating.
“He said no, but he knew somebody who acted like one.”
Peter sighed.
“I said Vincent needed supervision.”
Mia giggled.
Roman looked back at Peter.
“Why did you disappear?”
Peter’s expression became still.
“From your father’s life?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t.”
Roman frowned.
“I never saw you.”
“That’s different.”
“My father never mentioned you.”
“That’s also different.”
Peter folded his hands.
“Your father and I knew each other before he became the man you remember.”
Roman hated the phrasing because it implied there was a version of Vincent he had never known.
“Why does Mia know your watch?”
Peter looked down.
“This old thing?”
“You wore it thirty years ago.”
“Thirty-eight.”
“It has the same scratch.”
Peter rubbed his thumb across the glass.
“Your father did that.”
Roman stared.
“How?”
“Dropped it trying to steal it.”
Mia gasped happily.
“Grandpa stole?”
“No,” Roman said quickly.
Peter smiled.
“He borrowed permanently.”
“Peter.”
“Fine.”
Mia returned to her pancakes.
Roman lowered his voice.
“You’ve been speaking to my daughter for months. You know things about my family. You knew my father. And somehow nobody thought I needed to know.”
Peter’s eyes hardened slightly.
“I never approached her outside this diner. Never asked for her address. Never asked about your schedule. Never contacted her school. Never crossed a line.”
“You don’t decide where the line is.”
“No.”
Peter nodded slowly.
“You do.”
That answer took some of Roman’s anger away.
Only some.
Peter reached inside his jacket.
Roman tensed automatically.
Peter noticed and shook his head.
“Relax.”
He pulled out an envelope.
Old.
Yellowed at the corners.
Roman stared at it.
His name was written across the front.
Roman.
He knew the handwriting.
His father’s.
Roman did not touch it.
“What is that?”
“Something Vincent gave me.”
“When?”
“A few weeks before he died.”
Roman looked at the envelope.
“Why do you have it?”
Peter’s eyes met his.
“Because he asked me to keep it until I knew whether you needed it.”
Roman’s voice turned cold.
“Needed what?”
Peter looked toward Mia.
She was arranging strawberries into a smiley face.
Then he looked back at Roman.
“Perspective.”
Roman’s anger returned.
“You’ve been evaluating me.”
Peter’s expression was tired.
“Not exactly.”
“What exactly?”
Peter slid the envelope across the table but kept two fingers on it.
“Your father asked me to do something a long time ago.”
Roman stared at the handwriting.
Peter released the envelope.
“He didn’t ask me to protect the family, Roman.”
Roman looked up.
May you like
Peter’s gaze did not move.
“He asked me to watch what kind of father you became.”
